1975: Tunnels & Trolls

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—

Tunnels & Trolls was famously written and published in response to Dungeons & Dragons. The designer, Ken St. Andre, wanted something that played like Dungeons & Dragons, but was both faster and easier to play. The result was a short booklet, running to just forty-two pages, that he would write and publish in 1975 and find popularity, first in Phoenix, Arizona, followed by the USA and the rest of the world, being published in the United Kingdom and Japan and going through over eight editions. The Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition Reprint was published as part of the Kickstarter campaign for Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls and it gave fans of the roleplaying game a chance to look at the original version of the game, previously all but impossible, since only a hundred copies were published.

The Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition Reprint begins with an introduction by Ken St. Andre, which explains how both it and Tunnels & Trolls came to be, making it available after his last remaining copy was made available to, and selected by, one backer as part of the Kickstarter. He makes clear that his aim was not to invent fantasy roleplaying, but to simplify it and what he created was a style that was not derived from miniatures gaming as was Dungeons & Dragons, but more from literature and comics. In the process, as he says, he showed that there was another way to roleplay. Given that this version of Tunnels & Trolls was written and published in 1975, there are two issues with it in terms of content. One the author addressed in 2020, the other he has not. St. Andre states in a footnote that the spell Obey Me was originally called ‘Yassa Massa’ and that although his original intention was simply to amuse with what he calls his “thoughtless word play”, he changed it to avoid giving further offence as well as giving an apology. Whereas, in the section on ‘Human Auxiliaries’, a hero can hire two types of auxiliary character to accompany him on his delves. One is the hired henchman, the other is the slave, who is said to have no luck and no charisma ratings, and usually be of low I.Q. Female slaves cost extra. This could and should have been addressed at the time of publication, in 2013, or even 2020, but even now, it could be addressed, just as the ‘Yassa Massa’ spell name was.

Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition begins by explaining the basics of the game, which though very familiar today, would have been strange in 1975. The game is set in, “…[A]n alternate world where fantasy is alive and magic works (a world somewhat but not exactly similar to Tolkien’s Middle Earth) there exist numerous enchanted tunnel complexes with many types of treasure, and abundantly guarded by every imaginable form of monster, magic, and trap.” and that, “Brave men and women arm themselves and venture within the tunnels at the risk of body and soul to seek treasure and experience.” This requires that someone create or ‘dig’ and stock a dungeon with magic, monsters, and treasure, and that as the ‘Dungeon Master’, this person would act as the god within the dungeon, but till be fair to the other players, who will create and equip the character who will venture into this dungeon. Once set up, “The game is played something like Battleship.” Not the sense that there are two boards of which each player can only see their own, but rather that there is only one, which is, of course, known to the Dungeon Master, who will then reveal to the players as their characters explore its depths.

It is clear from the introduction that St. Andre is explaining what would have been a very new concept to the reader. After all, Dungeons & Dragons had only introduced it the previous year, which the author acknowledges in thanking both E. Gary Gygax and David Arneson for creating the original roleplaying game. The author also makes clear that the game is not his beyond making it available to others and encourages the reader to improve the rules as their imagination dictates.

After some advice on creating and stocking dungeons, Tunnels & Trolls explains how to create characters, noting here for the first time that their details can be recorded on three-by-five-inch cards. A character has six Prime Attributes. These are Strength, Intelligence, Luck, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma. In addition, the character has a note of the Gold Pieces possessed, and the weight he can carry and is carrying. He will also have Armour and Weapons, and will speak Common, but may know some other Languages. In terms of what he can be, the three types are Warrior, Magic-User, and Rogue, inspired by Conan, Gandalf, and Cugel, respectively. The Warrior cannot cast spells; the Magic-User can cast spells, but is extremely limited in what weapons he can wield; and the Rogue can both use weapons and cast spells, but do not start with spells, must find someone to teach him any spells, and cannot rise beyond Seventh Level without choosing to continue as either a Warrior or a Magic-User. Creating a character involves rolling three six-sided dice for each Prime Attribute and then again for the amount of gold he has to spend on equipment. Note that six-sided dice are used throughout Tunnels & Trolls rather than the polyhedral dice of Dungeons & Dragons, the aim being to make the game more accessible since it did not require special dice.

Name: Trigeor

Type: Magic-User

Strength 11 Intelligence 18 Luck 14

Constitution 09 Dexterity 14 Charisma 12 Gold 5

Weight Possible: 1100 Weight Carried: 136 Experience Points: 0

Weapons: Dagger (1 die)

Armour: None

Equipment: Calf-High Boots, Warm Dry Clothing & Pack, Day’s Provisions, Ten Torches, Magnetic Compass, Makeshift Magic Staff

Languages: Common, Elvish, Dwarfish, Draconic, Orcish, Trollish, Undead

Tunnels & Trolls quickly moves onto monsters and combat. Monsters have a single stat, called a Monster Rating. It indicates how tough a monster is and how many dice are rolled for it in combat, and it starts at zero and goes up and up. A minimum Monster Rating of ten gives one die, but for every five points after that, it increases the number of dice by one, and beyond one hundred, it increases the number of dice by one for every ten points. On the first round of a combat, half of a monster’s Monster Rating is added to the roll, but only a quarter is added on subsequent rounds. This addition is known as the monster’s ‘Add’. What Tunnels & Trolls does not do is give a list of monsters or a bestiary. The Dungeon Master is expected to set the Monster Ratings for his dungeon denizens according to the level of the dungeon, with the nearest advice given by Tunnels & Trolls is that a good fighter should have an equivalent Monster Rating of between twenty-six and forty and be roughly equal to a troll. However, this is probably the weakest aspect of Tunnels & Trolls since it is not clear what Monster Ratings the Dungeon Master should be assigning to his dungeon dwellers.

Interestingly, the rules do not give a set way in which to handle monsters encountered on the lower levels of the dungeon, but instead give options, because opinions vary in how it should be done. The monster could have more dice and bigger Add, its dice roll could be multiplied by the level, a monster could even be stated up like a character, or simply a bigger Add. This calls back to St. Andre’s statement in the introduction about the game not being his.

Combat is either missile combat, melee combat, or shock combat for that initial engagement. There is advice on the differences between these types, plus monster reactions, wandering monsters, and even capturing monsters, but once engaged, combat is a simple matter of comparing hit point totals. Not the amount of damage that a character or monster can suffer before dying, but the totals of the dice rolled plus any Adds. This can be individually, one-on-one, or it can be collectively. The latter means that the Dungeon Master can add up all of the Monster Ratings for his monsters and roll their dice and add their Adds, all in one go, rather than individually. The lower result is subtracted from the higher result and that is the number of hit points the losing side suffers. For the monsters, this reduces their Monster Rating, but for characters, it is deducted from their Constitutions. Both armour and shields will protect against incoming hit points, but armour will be damaged in the process.

Magic-Users are not expected to fight, and indeed, are restricted to single die weapons and shields, but can use their spells to protect them if they have the right ones. Also, when determining who suffers from hit points taken, the Magic-User also does so last. Warriors and Rogue do get Adds, whereas the Magic-User does not. For each point of Strength and Luck above twelve, a Warrior or Rogue gains one Add to dice rolls in combat, but subtracts one for each point of Strength and Luck below nine. This is the same for Dexterity, except for missile fire where the Adds are increased to two per point above. Although a character will always have a single die to roll in combat, the main means of increasing the dice rolled and the Adds is by purchasing weapons. Later on, a character’s Primary Attributes can be increased, which will raise the Adds and the character will find magical items that will increase both dice rolled and Adds.

Name: Glorimnaeck Orchelm

Species: Dwarf

Type: Warrior

Strength 26 Intelligence 08 Luck 13

Constitution 26 Dexterity 11 Charisma 10 Gold 1

Weight Possible: 1300 Weight Carried: 136 Experience Points: 0

Weapons: Warhammer (4+1), Poniard (1)

Armour: Gambeson, Chain Hauberk, Chain Gauntlets (4 total), Target Shield (2)

Equipment: Calf-High Boots, Warm Dry Clothing & Pack

Languages: Common, Elvish, Dwarfish, Draconic, Orcish, Trollish, Undead

Base Adds: +28

For example, Trigeor and his Dwarven friend, Glorimnaeck Orchelm, have ventured into a dungeon, known as the Orc ‘Ole. Despite carrying a compass, the pair get lost and find themselves being attacked by a band of Orcs. There are three of them, each with a Monster Rating of twelve. Individually, the Dungeon Master would be rolling one die and adding an ADD of six on the first found, but only two on later rounds. Collectively, they have a Monster Rating of thirty-six, meaning that the Referee will roll five dice and add eighteen on the first round, but only nine on later rounds. Glorimnaeck Orchelm’s player will roll four dice and add one for his Warhammer, and then another twenty-six for his Adds. 

The Referee rolls two, three, three, three, five, and six for a total of twenty-two, which together with the Orcs’ Adds, gives a total Hit Points of forty. Glorimnaeck Orchelm’s player rolls better with four, four, five, six, and six and adds one to give a total of twenty-six, which with the Dwarf’s Adds, means he has a grand total Hit Points of fifty-two! The Orcs’ Hit Points are subtracted from Glorimnaeck Orchelm’s and the resulting twelve Hit Points reduce the Orcs’ Monster Rating by twelve to twenty-four. The twelve is also enough to reduce one of the Orc’s Monster Rating to zero, so the Dungeon Master rules that Glorimnaeck Orchelm has smashed his head in and he goes flying back into the cave. Next round, the Orcs will have a Monster Rating of twenty-four, meaning that the Referee will roll three dice and only apply an Add of four!

The other main mechanic in Tunnels & Trolls is the Saving Throw. It is rolled to avoid a trap, to dodge a missile weapon attack, to withstand a poisonous brew, and so on, and it is always rolled using a character’s Luck. It also varies according to dungeon level. Thus, in the first level of a dungeon, a character’s Luck is subtracted from twenty to give the target number, but on the second level of the dungeon, it is subtracted from twenty-five, and so on. The resulting number gives a target that the player must roll equal to or higher, on two six-sided dice, but the target can never be lower than five. (For example, Trigeor’s Saving Throw will always be six on the first level of the dungeon, rising to eleven on the second level, and sixteen on the third level, until Luck is raised.) Rolls of doubles enable a player to add and roll again, so an impossible Saving Throw can be made if the character is lucky.

Experience points in the game are earned for combat, treasure found, for the deepest level of the dungeon a character visited, using and finding magic, and for successful Saving Throws. The progression table is all the same for all three character types, goes up to Seventeenth Level, and awards a character with a new title at each Level. The main reward for going up a Level is for a player to increase his character’s Primary Attributes, though typically only one can be increased per Level.

Tunnels & Trolls provides a basic list of equipment, in the second half of the roleplaying game, ‘Elaborations’ it includes a lengthy list of arms and armour and further equipment. There is an Advanced Weapons Chart in turn for swords, pole weapons, hafted weapons, daggers, spears, bows, and other missile weapons. Then for shields and defensive weapons, weird weapons, poisons, and armour. There are rules too for weapon breakage, depending on their composition. From flamberge, talibong, and shotel to riding mail, scale armour, and arming doublet, here then is the basis of all the weird and wonderful weapons that have been listed in all of the subsequent editions of Tunnels & Trolls.

Also in the ‘Elaborations’ section is ‘The Peters-McAllister Chart for Creating Manlike Characters and Monsters’, which like the advice and opinions on adjusting Monster Rating per dungeon Level, highlights the collaborative nature of the design of Tunnels & Trolls. This chart lists adjustments for creating Dwarves, Elves, Leprechauns, Fairies, and Hobbits, which can be both used to create monsters and characters. That said, playing characters in general of these species grants greater improvements to Primary Attributes with no downsides. There is guidance too, to adjust for Giants, Trolls, Ogres, Half-Ogres, Goblins, and Gremlins.

The largest section in the ‘Elaborations’, taking up nearly half its length and a quarter of Tunnels & Trolls as a whole, is on magic. Magic-Users are encouraged to use a staff, even a make-shift one through which to cast their magic, as they reduce the cost of casting magic, although a makeshift one will burn out very quickly. A proper magic-staff costs a lot of gold. The section notes that, “There are recognized laws of magic that we have mostly ignored in dreaming up the spells--the Law of Contagion, the Law of Similarity, the principles of necromancy and control of spirits, preferring instead to base most of these spells on inherent abilities of the magic-user a la Andre Norton.” What this means is that casting spells in Tunnels & Trolls is meant to be quick and easy. Spells have a cost in the caster’s actual Strength Primary Ability, which then has to regenerate. (This also means that Strength as a Primary Attribute is still important to a Magic-User and a Primary Attribute that he will want to increase to give spell-casting capacity.). All Magic-Users know First Level spells, whilst spells of higher Level have a minimum I.Q. to learn and cost in gold to purchase. One of the notable spells at First Level is Teacher, which lets a Magic-User teach a spell to a Rogue. Of course, here also, are the first appearances of the humorous, some would say silly, spell names for which Tunnels & Trolls is infamous. For example, Take That, You Fiend as a damage spell, Tunnels & Trolls for the healing spell, and so on. If they are in the main, tongue in cheek in tone, they are not always clear in their intent. The Dungeon Master would have had to adjudicate on things like the Will-o-Wisp spell, whose effect is, “provides light & drains strength”. Yet, the magic system for Tunnels & Trolls is simple and straightforward, even elegant, effectively a points-based system—the first—that empowers the Magic-User and constantly makes him useful in play.

As Glorimnaeck Orchelm gamely holds back the band of Orcs, Trigeor holds a torch so that it is not dark and prepares himself just in case he has to cast a spell. Just behind the melee, the Magic-User spots another Orc, bigger than the others. This is their boss and he has a Monster Rating of eighteen, meaning that the Dungeon Master will roll two dice for him and include an Add of nine in the first round and an Add of three in later rounds. Quickly, Trigeor cries out, “Take that you fiend!” and casts the spell of the same name at the newly arrived Orc. It costs him five Strength rather than the usual six, since he is casting it through his staff, which being only a makeshift one, fizzes and burns as the magic passes through it. The spell means that Trigeor will be using his I.Q. to attack the Orc, and in addition will gain a single die as normal. Since Trigeor has an I.Q. of eighteen, it is going to kill the Orc. The Orcs attacking the Dwarf look behind them as they hear a popping sound to discover their boss collapsing to the floor, steam rising from his eyes and ears!

Physically, the Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition Reprint—and thus Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition—is a scrappy , scruffy, inconsistent affair. It looks and reads very much like a fanzine of the period. Yet it is readable and it is illustrated in very spritely, engaging fashion.

—oOo—

The second edition of Tunnels & Trolls was reviewed in ‘Tunnels and Trolls: A Review of Sorts’ by Brant Bates in The Space Gamer Issue Number 3 (1975). He highlighted the differences between Tunnels & Trolls and Dungeons & Dragons, beginning with, “There is no sexist bias In T&T, Female characters come out exactly as created by the dice--not reduced in size and strength by an arbitrary fraction just because they are female.” before going on to look at other differences in terms of character creation and combat. He was overall positive about the art, saying, “It is mostly by a Phoenix fan artist named Rob Carver, and it ranges from the gorgeous to the ridiculous--mostly the latter. The cartoon to illustrate the magical spells are very droll, and the portrait of St. Andre captures his very soul.” He concluded with, “T&T has been sold from coast to coast, but is still most popular in Phoenix, where it has become the official game of the organized SF club there. It is very playable, and a lot of fun--great for stretching the old imagination. I recommend it for fantasy fans who are not purists, and who do not necessarily believe a game’s quality depends on its cost.” 

Lewis Pulsipher reviewed the British version published by Strategy Games Ltd. in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue No. 2 (August/September 1977). He said, “The excuse for publication here and now, presumably, is that there is a need for a cheap and understandable role playing game for those who can’t afford or make sense of D&D.” but was otherwise not positive, criticising the lack of clarity in the rules, the amount of creative effort that a Referee had to put into the game, and the humour in the game, especially in the names of the spells. His conclusion was that, “Anyone who likes T&T will sooner or later ‘graduate’ to the much more satisfying (and much more widely played) D&D. In considerable wargaming travels in the USA I never encountered anyone who played T&T, though D&D players are everywhere, and I’ve not even heard of anyone in this country who plays it. When it first appeared in America I said there was no point in it, and nothing has occurred to change my opinion.”

—oOo—

Tunnels & Trolls is rough and just about ready. It is playable and by modern standards, just about has the bare minimum need to play. This should be no surprise. It was written fifty years ago when no one knew quite what a roleplaying game was—literally, as the term had then yet to be defined—and no-one knew how to write one. So, if the writing is not right and the explanations are not as clear as they could have been, and the contents are not in the order that we might expect them to be, then that is perfectly understandable. Yet, as scrappy as the resulting rulebook is, Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition is a likeable game, one that is not taking itself too seriously and reads as if it is actually fun to play and faster to play. What is amazing is that within four years, Flying Buffalo would take the very basics of what is here and develop it into the fifth edition of Tunnels & Trolls that would remain its mainstay for over twenty-five years! The Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition Reprint is an important piece of roleplaying history, the opportunity to look at the first roleplaying response to Dungeons & Dragons, to look at the origins of the world’s second longest fantasy roleplaying game, and to look at the beginnings of the roleplaying hobby as the concept spread beyond Dungeons & Dragons.

The Other OSR: Whalgravaak’s Warehouse

Troika! is both a setting and a roleplaying game. As the latter, it provides simple, clear mechanics inspired by the Fighting Fantasy series of solo adventure books, but combined with a wonderfully weird cast of character types, all ready to play the constantly odd the introductory adventure, ‘The Blancmange and Thistle’. As the former, it takes the Player Characters on adventures through the multiverse, from one strange sphere to another, to visit twin towers which in their dying are spreading a blight that are turning a world to dust, investigate murder on the Nantucket Sleigh Ride on an ice planet, and investigate hard boiled murder and economic malfeasance following the collapse of the Scarf-Worm investment bubble. At the heart of Troika! stands the city itself, large, undefined, existing somewhere in the cosmos with easy access from one dimension after another, visited by tourists from across the universe and next door, and in game terms, possessing room aplenty for further additions and details. One such detail is Whalgravaak’s Warehouse.

Whalgravaak’s Warehouse is the start of a new series of scenarios for Troika! from the Melsonian Arts Council. This is the ‘1:5 Troika Adventures’ series, which places an emphasis on shorter, location-based adventures, typically hexcrawls or dungeoncrawls, set within the city of Troika, but which do not provide new Backgrounds for Player Characters or ‘Hack’ how Troika! is played. Whalgravaak’s Warehouse lives up to that, in that it dungeoncrawl takes place in a large, in places, impossibly large interdimensional warehouse that served as major import/export house for the city of Troika. Whalgravaak was once known as the cruel, but efficient logistics wizard who could get anything from anywhere and ship anything to anywhere, which made him and clients rich as the city became a shipping nexus between the sphere without the need or the expense of training staff to crew and maintain the golden barges that still traverse between the spheres today. However, Whalgravaak grew paranoid in his old age, destroyed the instruction manual to the great device by which goods were transported, and retired. When the device became a threat to the city of Troika, the Autarch ordered Whalgravaak’s Warehouse permanently closed and locked. That was centuries ago. Whalgravaak is long dead. His warehouse still stands, a looming monolithic presence in a bad part of the city. Nobody goes in and nobody comes out. Though some claim there is movement on the room. Now, someone wants something from inside and have decided that the Player Characters are best equipped to find their way in and navigate its darkened offices and deep storage bays with their vertiginously stacked crates, which surely must still contain something interesting after all that since Whalgravaak himself died?

Whalgravaak’s Warehouse gives one main reason why the Player Characters might want to break into and explore the warehouse. This is to locate a book called The Tome of Sable Fields, for which they will be paid handsomely, but there are others and the Game Master can easily come up with more. Finding a way into the warehouse is a challenge in itself, but inside, the Player Characters will find strange worm-headed dog gone feral, creeping bandits and burglars looking for goods to fence or places to dump bodies, cultists who worship the still breathing nose of a titan, a clan of dustmen sieving the heaps of dust on the expansive roof of the warehouse where the air glows aquamarine like the Dustmen of Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, and more. There are rooms full of great lengths of rope that are mouldering into slime, a vegetable store where an onion has become an Onion Godlet, a room of sponges so dry it will suck the moisture from anyone who enters, and a set of employee records laden with bureaucratic despair… The roof is a post-apocalyptic hexcrawl of its very own, a separate environment that is essentially a desert of dust, marked only by the flickering head of one the giants that still work in the warehouse below and an Oasis of Tea, that will take the Player Characters days to explore. They had better come prepared for hot weather!

Locating The Tome of Sable Fields is a relatively simple matter and the Player Characters may do so relatively quickly, but actually getting hold of it is another matter. It is actually suspended over the very means by which Whalgravaak transported goods from one dimension to another by a crane. Unfortunately, none of the parts of the crane are talking to each other and the only way to get the crane operating is to get them to talk to each other. Essentially one bit of the crane is more noble than the other and the Player Characters will probably need to persuade them to overcome their individual problems and snobbery. This will drive them into exploring the warehouse further in the hopes of finding the means of getting each one to co-operate.

As part of the ‘1:5 Troika Adventures’ series and thus a dungeoncrawl, although one in a warehouse, Whalgravaak’s Warehouse is designed to be played like a dungeon and explored like a dungeon. Thus movement, noise, and resources become important, the Player Characters need a source of light and the scenario is played out in ten-minute turns in true Old School style Dungeons & Dragons. This also means that Whalgravaak’s Warehouse is played differently to other adventures for Troika!, with less of an emphasis on narrative play and more on environmental, location-based exploration. In keeping with the style, the adventure is perhaps deadlier and more challenging than the typical Troika! adventure, requiring more caution and care than a Troika! player might be used to.

Physically, Whalgravaak’s Warehouse is very well presented. The artwork is as weird and wonderful as you would expert, the cartography is decent, and the layout is clear and easy to use. There is also good advice for the Game Master on how and why she should use Whalgravaak’s Warehouse, and a clear explanation of what is going on in the warehouse.

Whalgravaak’s Warehouse is a great set-up for an adventure. Take the warehouse of an interdimensional import/export house, abandon it for centuries, and then turn it into an industrial dungeon with weird Dickensian undertones. The result is eminently entertaining and constantly going to screw with the heads of both the players and their characters as they discover one example of industrial decline after another and just what happens when you leave a dangerous interdimensional magical industrial complex alone for far too long.

Quick-Start Saturday: Outgunned

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

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

—oOo—

What is it?

Outgunned – Hero to Zero is the quick-start for Outgunned, the roleplaying game of action movies from the eighties and nineties (and beyond), inspired by Die Hard, True Lies, Lethal Weapon, Kingsman, Ocean’s Eleven, Hot Fuzz, and even John Wick.

It is also the English language quick-start for the Italian roleplaying game of the same name.

It is a seventy-one-page, 83.90 MB full colour PDF.

How long will it take to play?
Outgunned – Hero to Zero and its adventure (also known as a ‘Introductory Shot’), ‘Race Against Time’, is designed to be played through in a single session, two at most.

What else do you need to play?
Outgunned – Hero to Zero can be played using a total of nine six-sided dice, ideally per player. (The full game uses its own set of Action Dice.)

Who do you play?
The four Player Characters—or Heroes—in Outgunned – Hero to Zero consist of an undercover police officer, a hotshot driver and pilot, an ever cheerful bounty hunter, and a charming martial artist.

How is a Player Character defined?

A Hero in Outgunned – Hero to Zero is defined by his Name, Role and Trope, Job, Age, Catchphrase, and Flaw. The Role and Trope determine a Hero’s starting Skills, whilst the Job grants access to information and contacts. Together with the Catchphrase, they can be combined by the player to define an action film archetype. The Catchphrase is a tag line or a creed, something guides the Hero to act when it comes time for action. The Flaw is an aspect of the Hero that will hinder him throughout his adventures.

A Hero has five Attributes and twenty Skills. The Attributes are Brawn, Nerves, Smooth, Focus, and Crime. Brawn handles action, Nerves handles reflexes and steady hands, Smooth is used for interaction and manipulation, Focus is for concentration, perception, and recall, and Crime is for awareness and secret action. Feats are granted by a Hero’s Role and Trope and typically allow a ‘Free Re-Roll’ when the Hero acts according to one of his Feats.

Experiences, of which there are four types—Achievements, Scars, Reputations, and Bonds—will affect a Hero’s dice rolls. These are not used in Outgunned – Hero to Zero.

Damage suffered is handled by Grit, ‘You Look’, and the ‘Death Roulette’. Grit is the amount damage a Hero can suffer, whilst the ‘Death Roulette’ is what the Director rolls against if there is a chance that the Hero will die. The chance—or the number of Lethal Bullets it holds—increases each time the Director rolls and the Hero survives. ‘You Look’ is actually a measure of how the Hero looks to others, as in, “How do I look?” and is actually a way of keeping track of the Conditions that a Hero might suffer.

A Hero has access to types of luck points, Adrenaline and Spotlight. A Hero has access to Adrenaline, up to maximum of six. It is earned for getting a success against all odds, making a great sacrifice, and so on. It can be spent to gain a bonus to a roll, to activate certain Feats, and to get an immediate Spotlight. The Director is encouraged to be generous with Adrenaline and every player is encouraged to spend it. A Hero can have three Spotlights and they can be expended to gain an ‘Extreme Success’ automatically, ‘Save a Friend’ who has lost at the Death Roulette, ‘Remove a Condition’, and even do something dramatic!

Weapons and gear will help under specific circumstances. There is an emphasis on guns and rides.

How do the mechanics work?

Mechanically, rolls in Outgunned are either an Action Roll or a Reaction Roll. The number of dice rolled for either always consists of the combined values for an Attribute and a Skill. For example, ‘Nerves’ and ‘Shoot’ to fire a gun at someone or ‘Smooth’ and ‘Streetwise’ to persuade a crook that you are one of them. Equipment and conditions will alter the number of dice a player has to a minimum of two and a maximum of nine. To succeed at a task, a player needs to roll sets of the same symbols (or numbers if not using Outgunned dice). The size of the set indicates the level of success. Two of a kind is a Basic Success; three of a kind is a Critical Success; four of a kind is Extreme Success; five of a kind is an Impossible Success; and six or more of a kind is a Jackpot! If the roll matches the difficulty of the task set by the Director—the Difficulty being either Basic, Critical, Extreme, Impossible, or Jackpot!—the Hero succeeds. A higher success can grant a better outcome, an advantage, or even extra actions, whilst a Jackpot! means that the player becomes the Director temporarily.

If the roll is not a success and the player has one success, he can reroll any dice that do not match. If the re-roll is a success, he keeps them, but if not, he loses a rolled success. Certain Feats allow a free re-roll without any possibility of losing successes. Lastly, after a re-roll, a player can go ‘All In’, push his luck and re-roll all dice that do not match any successes. However, if he fails, he loses everything, including all of successes rolled.

Even after a Re-roll and an ‘All In’, a roll that does not succeed is not a failure. Instead, a hero succeeds, but with consequences. Essentially the equivalent of a ‘Yes, but’.

How does combat work?
Combat in the Outgunned – Hero to Zero as per the rules above, but actions become ‘Dangerous’, which means that a Hero can lose Grit if a roll is not a success. If he loses too much Grit, he will suffer from one or more conditions, and even force rolls of the Death Roulette on the Hero. In comparison, the enemies—Goons, Bad Guys, and Bosses—have only Grit, not the Death Roulette, and when this is reduced to zero, they are knocked out. Bosses have Hot Boxes on their Grit track, indicating that they receive Adrenaline to spend on special actions of their own. The rules for combat cover range, cover, counting magazines (rather than bullets), and so on. There are also rules for car chases as well

What do you play?

‘Race Against Time’ is the ‘Introductory Shot’ in Outgunned – Hero to Zero, a classic movie action plot involving a hunt for a MacGuffin. Naturally, it involves lots of a fights, a chase, and an exploding aeroplane! It is, of course, an entertaining affair and is made all the better by the staging advice given alongside the length of the scenario. The advice is excellent, suggesting possible maneouvres that the Heroes might take in the various situations they find themselves in throughout the scenario.

The scenario is open-ended, so the Director could run a sequel by adapting some of the content in Outgunned – Hero to Zero.

Is there anything missing?
No. Outgunned – Hero to Zero includes everything that the Director and four players need to play through it.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in Outgunned – Hero to Zero are not easy to prepare. They are not difficult to prepare, but rather they take a slight adjustment as they are not as straightforward or as obviously intuitive as most rules are. So they require careful attention upon the part of Director.

Is it worth it?
Yes. Outgunned – Hero to Zero presents the basics of an exciting action-orientated game that plays fast and encourages the players to both indulge in all of the clichés of the action movie genre and be inventive in when it comes to their Heroes being cool and cinematic. The rules are just different enough to make them initially a little challenging, but after that, the session is full of bullets flying, fists lashing, and wheels screeching action.

Outgunned – Hero to Zero is published by Two Little Mice and is available to download here.

Friday Fantasy: Beyond the Black Gate

It begins with a great crashing and splashing. The Player Characters are aboard the Morro, caught in a fearsome storm of raging winds and seas that is driving the ship ever closer onto the jagged rocks below towering black cliffs. Despite their efforts, and those of the crew, with a mighty crack, the ship is thrown onto the rock and shattered, and the Player Characters cast into the water. Before them lies the cliffs or a dark cave mouth… Whichever course the Player Characters take, they will find themselves in a Fallen Chapel, guided by a large black goat, a cat, an enormous boar, a raven, a trio of toads, a large snake, a wide-eyed owl, and more before a Witches’ Sabbat where they will learn the true reason behind their current situation. The thirteenth of the robed figures, a hag known as Baba Iaga (yes, really…) will tell them that the coven’s master, the Horned King, lord of the Wild Hunt, who bestows his blessing upon heathen witches, barbarian shamans, and warriors that exalt the wild savage hidden within, has lost his vigour. Instead of riding forth, at the head of pack of hounds, he lazes atop his throne of bones, thrall to the ice giant’s daughter. Baba Iaga tells them to enter the Thrice-Tenth Kingdom that is the Horned Lord’s realm and once in his citadel, steal the great antlered crown from his head and come back through the Black Gate render it into her care! In return, she and the Witches of Asur shall reward them mightily!

This is the set-up for Dungeon Crawl Classics #72: Beyond the Black Gate, the sixth scenario to be published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Designed by Harley Stroh for a group of six to ten Fifth Level Player Characters, which takes beyond the far North into the mystic realms of Thrice-Tenth Kingdom, encrusted in snow and ice and there confront the Ice Giants who have turned his citadel into a foul fane. It has an unworldly feel, grim and dank, and has some fantastic encounters, such as two larger giants bullying a younger one for his cowardice and forcing him to fight the Player Characters alone, refuse chambers full of bones and plague rats, and an ice-mirrored hall slick with frost and ice that turn the cave into a maze of refracted light from the Player Characters’ torches and the hunting ground of a blind, aging Ice Giant Warrior. The Ice Giants are tough challenging, especially when faced in groups, but careful, even cautious play upon the part of the players and their characters will enable them to pick them off one by one.

Penultimately, the Player Characters will confront the gaunt, drained, and haunted figure of the Horned King slumped upon his throne before a Giantess, dancing, twirling, and spinning for this pleasure, whilst the vile, vampiric salamander, feeds upon the Horned King’s blood. She is Vefreyja, the Ice Giant’s Daughter, and the Player Characters should be beware of her kiss, whilst the salamander has secrets of his own. It is a grand fight, but ultimately, the Player Characters have a choice in what they do. They can simply take the crown of the Horned King or kill him, they can free him and take him as Patron, and they can even kill Baba Iaga and her coven. Whatever they decide to do, there are consequences to the Player Characters’ actions. If they return to the Crown of the Horned King to Baba Iaga, she will genuinely reward them—there is no betrayal of the Player Characters here! The Horned King will reward them with his patronage if they rescue him, but alternatively, one of the Player Characters could take the Horned Crown and ascend the throne of the Thrice-Tenth Kingdom. There are great duties involved in bearing the Horned Crown, but great benefits too. This is not as fully explored in the scenario as it should be, but the potential is there and the Judge will need to develop this more fully herself. In addition, there are a number of good magical items to be found and also be earned as a reward if the Player Characters give the Horned Crown to Baba Iaga, so it will not feel as if one player and his character is being rewarded more than another by taking the Horned Crown.

To support the scenario and beyond, Dungeon Crawl Classics #72: Beyond the Black Gate includes details of the Horned King as a Patron, which gives the Patron Invoke effect, Patron Taint, and the spell, Slaying Strike. This is followed by details of the Horned Crown and the other magical items in the scenario.

If there is an issue to the scenario, it is that it is linear and the set-up forces the Player Characters to follow Baba Iaga’s diktats, so it will not seem as if they have much in the way of choice. There is some truth to this, but the players and their characters do have plenty of choice in how they resolve the scenario. Another issue is the maps of the Citadel of the Horned King and the Dungeons of Horned King below it and their accompany descriptions. The description of the dungeon comes in the middle of the Citadel of the Horned King which makes it feel as if the description is forcing the Player Characters to explore below before coming back upstairs to face the Horned King. The inclusion of the dungeon is important because it offers another way into the Citadel of the Horned King, but the inclusion of its description in the middle of the description of the Citadel is an annoying intrusion. It would have made more sense to keep the descriptions separate.

Like the Dungeon Crawl Classics #71: The 13th Skull before it, Dungeon Crawl Classics #72: Beyond the Black Gate includes a second, smaller scenario. This is Terry Olson’s ‘Crash of the Sky People’, a short, Science Fantasy scenario designed for four to six Player Characters of Third Level. Designed for convention play and thus having a running time of roughly four hours, it opens with a starship of the infamous winged sky-pirates from the planet Tahlmohl crashing to earth near the Player Characters. When they go to investigate, they discover the wreckage is guarded by robots and strange traps the likes of which they will never have seen before. The scenario has the feel of S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, though on a very much smaller scale. Ultimately though, this is all a set-up to get the Player Characters into a Sky Joust with other Tahlmohlian sky-pirates! The scenario is decent enough for a convention scenario and could easily be tied into other scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics which have a similar Science Fantasy feel.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #72: Beyond the Black Gate is decently presented. The artwork is good and the maps clear and easy to use. In comparison, ‘Crash of the Sky People’ feels more perfunctorily presented, but is okay rather than poor in terms of its appearance.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #72: Beyond the Black Gate is a short, but epic and entertaining Swords & Sorcery scenario. It has a grim grandeur and is brilliantly brutal in taking the Player Characters to the winter of the Mystic North and back again in a thoroughly enjoyable scenario.

Friday Filler: Back to the Future: Back in Time

What is great about boardgames today is that designers can go back in time to revisit old films and old television series and create if not great games based on them, but then good solid, playable games that at the very least do the films and television series they are based on justice by making you feel that you are playing those films or television series. The design team at Prospero Hall proved this to be the case again and again with multiple titles like Fast & Furious: Highway Heist, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Horrified, Jaws , and more. Back to the Future: Back in Time is Prospero Hall’s version of the classic eighties time travel film starring Michael J. Fox, which happens to be forty years old in 2025. Back to the Future: Back in Time is also published by Funko Games, so from the start, the pedigree of the game looks good. The result is a co-operative game for two to four players, aged ten and up, which focuses not on the obvious theme of the film, time travel, but on what the lead character, Marty McFly, has to do to get back from 1955 to 1985, which is make sure his parents get together and are in love and the DeLorean is in right place and ready for time travel. Of course, this is not easy. The photograph of Marty McFly and his siblings must not have faded away by the time this happens, Biff will be constantly interfering and so needs punching, the DeLorean needs repairing, and there are a lot of other obstacles that the players will face.

Since Back to the Future: Back in Time is from Funko Games, the production values are great. This starts with the image of the Fluxx Capacitor on the base of the board. This adds nothing to the game play, but it is a little detail that just adds a little extra… The rulebook is not presented as a rulebook per se, but as an issue of the ‘Tales from Space’ comic book, this time containing a ‘Shocking SCIENCE-FICTION Rulebook’. The look of the cover to the comic book is matched by the game’s artwork, which is all drawn and painted in the style of a bande dessinée comic book rather than the game using stills from the film. There is no doubt that there are good film stills that could have been used in the game, but the look of Back to the Future: Back in Time is classier and all the better for not using film stills.

Underneath the board, in addition to the rulebook, you will find four Character Mats plus their Starter Power Tiles and Player Figures, three Non-Player Figures, eight dice, a Clock Dice Tower, a DeLorean Car piece, decks of Movement, Opportunity, Trouble, and Item Cards, DeLorean Part Tiles, Knockdown Tokens, a Turn Tracker, McFly Photo Sections, and a Love Meter. The board depicts the various locations in Hill Valley, including the Clock Tower, Town Square, Hill Vally High, Doc Brown’s House, and the houses of both Lorraine and George. The four Character Mats plus their Starter Power Tiles and Player Figures are for Marty, Doc, Jennifer, and Einstein—and yes, you really do play Doc Brown’s pet dog! The Character Mats depict each character, have spaces for the Starter Power Tiles with room for more, and details of each character’s Special Power. Marty McFly can move Lorraine closer to him, Doc Brown can move to the location of the DeLorean, Jennifer can move Marty, Doc, or Einstein closer to her, and Einstein can move Biff away if he is too close to him. The Power Tiles represent Actions that a player can do on his turn, including moving his Character, attempting a challenge, modifying a die roll, and using Item Cards. The three Non-Player Figures are George, Lorraine, and Biff. Throughout the game, the players will be escorting George and Lorraine to get them together and thus fall in love, whilst keeping Biff away.

The Movement Cards give instructions to move George, Lorraine, and Biff. Whereas George and Lorraine will move around the board, Biff will move towards them and if in the same location as either, will reduce the love between George and Lorraine as tracked on the Love Meter. The Opportunity Cards, each based on a scene from the film, present a chance for the players to gain an advantage. For example, ‘Provoke Biff’ Opportunity Card shows Biff and his gang chasing you in his black 1946 Ford Super De Luxe convertible and if the player is successful, he will gain an extra Power Tile and the Skateboard Item Card, whilst the ‘Get Your Damn Hands Off Her’ Opportunity Card shows George punching Biff and rewards the player by moving Biff to the School Parking Lot, knocking him down, and giving him a Knockdown Token. The Item Cards show items and pieces of equipment, many of them iconic to the film, which give a player an advantage each turn. For example, the ‘Remote Control’ Item Card enables a player to attempt a Move DeLorean Challenge from anywhere on the board, whilst with the ‘George’s Notebook’ Item Card, a player can move George closer to him. Apart from the ‘Backpack’ Item Card, which has the constant effect of granting a player more Power Tiles and is never exhausted, an Item card is exhausted after each use and it can be used every turn.

Where the Movement, Opportunity, and Item Cards are quite small, the Trouble Cards are larger and square in shape. They represent factors that will hinder the players throughout the game and come in three levels so that they get more difficult to overcome and have a greater negative the higher their level. For example, the Level One Trouble Card, ‘Strickland Looks for Slackers’, prevents anyone from attempting a ‘Fight Biff Challenge’ and if dealt with, grants a player a new Power Tile, whilst the ‘Starlighters’ Guitarist Injured’ Trouble Card is Level Three and has the chance of forcing sections of the McFly Photo to be flipped over, and if dealt with, grants a player a new Power Tile. There can only be one Trouble Card in play, but remains in play until resolved or removed from the board.

The Love Meter shows two things. One is the McFly Family Photo which depicts Marty McFly and his older siblings, Dave and Linda. The McFly Family Photo is made up of six sections that can be flipped over during play to represent their fading from the timeline. Around the edge of Love Meter is a track that runs from ‘-4’ to fifteen. The top three spaces are marked with a Heart and called the ‘Heart Zone’. If the Love Meter Cube (or marker) is in this zone, George and Lorraine are in love. The lower numbered spaces track the progress of their potentially falling in love and whilst the Love Meter Cube is in this area, there is the chance of the six sections that McFly Family Photo will fade…

Lastly, there is the Turn Tracker, which acts as a countdown towards 10:04 p.m. on November 12th, 1955 when the lightning bolt will strike the Clock Tower overlooking the Hill Valley Town Square and provide the DeLorean’s flux capacitor with the 1.21 gigawatts of pure power needed to propel it forward it in time, back to 1985. One side is intended for player with three players, which the other is for two or four. The spaces on the Turn Tracker indicated what cards are drawn on each turn, including Movement Cards and Trouble Cards and checking the Love Meter and the McFly Family Photo.

Back to the Future: Back in Time does have a lot of pieces and a few moving parts, so that it looks more complex than it actually is. A player’s turn consist of two phases. In the Turner Tracker Phase, he will move the Turn Tracker Cube along one space and resolves the instructions it gives. This will always be a Movement Card to move George, Lorraine, and Biff, but can also be adding new Trouble Card to the game board or having to check the Love Meter and the McFly Family Photo. In the Action Phase, a player uses the Power Tiles to move his character around Hill Valley and Attempt Challenges. The Starter Power Tiles—five per Character—either enable the Character to move or a particular set of dice. Some of the extra Power Tiles, which can be gained by overcoming various challenges, do exactly the same, but others do more than this, such as reroll all dice that show ‘Biff’ symbols or change the symbols rolled on the dice to another. A Power Tile can be used only once per turn, but together with his Character’s Special Power, they give a player six actions on his turn and this can be expanded up to nine if a player overcomes enough Challenges.

There are six types of Challenge in Back to the Future: Back in Time. For the ‘Influence Love Challenge’, George and Lorraine must be together with the Character, whose player rolls the dice to generate Heart symbols to raise the Love Meter and so cause the potential lovebirds to fall in love. The ‘Move DeLorean Challenge’ is done to move the DeLorean around the board to get it to the Town Square in readiness for the lighting bolt striking the Clock Tower, whilst the ‘Prepare DeLorean Challenge’ has the Characters prepare the DeLorean with the Cable, the Hook, and the Gasoline at Doc Brown’s house before it can be moved to the Town Square. This only needs be done once per DeLorean Part per game, unlike the other Challenges. The ‘Fight Biff Challenge’ is conducted to try and knock Biff. This disables his action and movement, in particular, preventing the rolling of ‘Biff’ symbols on the dice. The ‘Opportunity Challenge’ gives a chance for the player to gain an advantage, a Power Tile, and other rewards, whilst a ‘Trouble Challenge’ is a chance for the player to overcome a ‘Trouble Card’ that is hindering everyone’s progress.

The dice come in four sets of two. The different types have certain symbols on them that need to be rolled for the various Challenges, but they all have ‘Biff’ and ‘Wild Card’ symbols on them too. The ‘Wild Card’ symbols can be used as any symbol to meet any Challenge and a player can reroll as many dice as he wants on an attempt against a Challenge, depending upon the Power Tiles used, of course. However, ‘Biff’ symbols are bad. Once rolled, they cannot be rerolled, and for each one rolled, the Biff figure is moved closer to Lorraine or George and once at the same location, lowers the Love Meter. Each Knockdown Token that Biff has counters a single ‘Biff’ symbol rolled on the dice. A player can roll as many or as few dice as he wants, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Rolling more dice means that there is likelihood of rolling Wildcard symbols, which means getting more of the symbols he wants, but it also means that he might roll more ‘Biff’ symbols. Further, as long as he does not roll ‘Biff’ symbols, a player can roll the dice as often as he wants or needs to.

Once set-up, the play is all about the right pieces to the right places. George and Lorraine together and all the way on the Love Meter, Biff away from them, and the DeLorean, first to Doc Brown’s House to get the items needed for the lightning strike, and then to the Town Square. As the players push all of their characters and pieces into place, the game is annoyingly pulling them apart, splitting up George and Lorraine, getting Biff too close, causing trouble, and so on. And if the game sounds complex, once you actually have it set up and start playing, everything clicks into place, because what you realise is that you are playing out the plot of Back to the Future and quite literally time is against you. This is where the fun of the game comes to the fore along with the tension in the mechanics, so ultimately, the question of the game is, “Can you do as well as director, Robert Zemeckis, and the film’s cast?” And whilst you might not be able to first time, when you do, you will have told your own version of the story.

The fact that Back to the Future: Back in Time hews so close to the film is both a blessing and a curse. It means that the game is familiar to most players and that form the start, they understand what the overall objective is, and from there it is not that difficult to learn how to achieve that objective using the game’s rules. However, it does mean that Back to the Future: Back in Time cannot actually offer all that much in terms of variability and replayability. This is less of an issue for casual boardgame players than it is for the veteran player, but still, play it more than a few times and it begins to feel like you are watching the same film over and over. Lastly, as a co-operative game, it has the potential suffer from the Alpha Player Problem in which one player starts directing everyone else’s action, especially given that this game is aimed at a family audience and an experienced boardgame player may be the one teaching others to play it.

Physically, Back to the Future: Back in Time is very well produced. The standout piece is the DeLorean car which looks really good and there is even a Clock Tower Dice Tower that you can put together and have sat on the board where it can be used to roll dice and to add a little more physicality to the game. The artwork on the cards and in the rulebook is all excellent, capturing the likenesses of the various characters, items, and places an engaging comic book style. What lets the production values done are the figures. They are not particularly detailed and they really just about capture a feel of the likenesses of the characters. Plus, they are a little light. However, done in different colours, it is easy to work out which character is which.

Back to the Future: Back in Time is very good adaption of the classic time travel comedy. Almost too good in fact. Fans of the film will enjoy this game a great deal, but without being daunted by the rules which really do help them tell the story of Back to the Future. Hardened boardgame players will enjoy what is a very well designed, very nice looking, co-operative game (though not much beyond a few plays). Back to the Future: Back in Time is another excellent game from both Prospero Hall and Funko Games.

Reviews from R’lyeh Post-Christmas Dozen 2024

Since 2001, Reviews from R’lyeh have contributed to a series of Christmas lists at Ogrecave.com—and at RPGaction.com before that, suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles from the last twelve months that you might like to receive and give. Continuing the break with tradition—in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond its control, OgreCave.com is not running its own lists—Reviews from R’lyeh would once again like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about ‘Baleful Blandishments’ to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days. So as Reviews from R’lyeh presents its annual (Post-)Christmas Dozen, I can only hope that the following list includes one of your favourites, or even better still, includes a game that you did not have and someone was happy to hide in gaudy paper and place under that dead tree for you. If not, then this is a list of what would have been good under that tree and what you should purchase yourself to read and play in the months to come.

—oOo—

The Making of the Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970 – 1977
Wizards of the Coast ($99.99/£75)
In an exceptional year for books about the history of the hobby, the first entry on the list is the most controversial, but an absolute must for the Dungeons & Dragons fan who has an interest in the early history of the world’s most popular roleplaying game. To help celebrate the fiftieth anniversary, this massive volume charts the gestation and development through letters and fanzines of the ideas that would ultimately lead to the publication of Original Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. The hefty tome draws heavily on the archives to fully reproduce Chainmail – rules for medieval miniatures and its Fantasy Supplement that were the precursors to Dungeons & Dragons, the very first draft of Dungeons & Dragons, and much, much more, all the way up to the published version and beyond. Were you so inclined, the reproductions in this book are so good that you could actually run a game based on the rules they present! Everything is faithfully reproduced and accompanied by a commentary from Jon Peterson, one of the hobby’s few historians, the result is a superb book, one that genuinely gives the fan of the roleplaying game the opportunity to look at documents and correspondences that they would otherwise never have the chance to look at or read. The Making of the Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970 – 1977 is like having a Dungeons & Dragons museum of your own, but one that you can pull from your shelf and browse any time you like. If you really have any interest in the development of the roleplaying hobby, let alone that of Dungeons & Dragons, this book is essential.

Eat The Reich
Rowan, Rook, & Decard ($30/£25)
Why bother punching a Nazi, when you can fucking eat a Nazi? Eat The Reich is the all-action roleplaying game in which the Player Characters are a team of crack vampire commandos coffin dropped on Paris in 1943. And then cutting, stabbing, biting, rending, and blood draining their way across the City of Lights and up the ranks of the German occupiers to the top and beyond. And beyond means getting hold of Adolf Hitler himself—currently lurking in his zeppelin moored to the Eiffel Tower, so atop Paris effectively—and drink all of his amphetamine-fuelled blood. If that does not sound like a great hook for a session or three of over-the-top, blood-drenched action, then what the hell are you here for? Eat The Reich is designed to be fast-playing with an emphasis on carnage, blood magic, meaningful flashbacks, and the slaughter of hundreds and hundreds of Fascists. Which is not enough Fascists. All of which is packaged in a swathe of vibrant pinks, blues, and yellows that give the combined roleplaying game and scenario a neon punk energy all of its very own. Play Eat The Reich. Kill Nazis. Drink their blood. Is there anything better?

The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh
The Merry Mushmen ($28/£22.50)
The village of Hendenburgh stands in the middle of the Kryptwood, an ancient forest steeped in legend and history recently beset by murderous demon hounds, ripping apart anyone who dares enter its reaches and even snatching lone villagers from the streets of the small settlement. These are the only dangers faced by the villagers: Highwaymen lurk in the forest, ready to pounce on Hendenburgh’s misfortune; a coven of witches wants everything to be returned to normal; the old silver mine stands abandoned, infested with monsters that drove out the miners and sowed the seeds of Hendenburgh’s poverty; a Bridge Troll has gone on strike after a drunken pixie failed to pay the toll; and at its heart, the Tomb of the Tyrant, the last resting place of the Kryptwood Tyrant, a despot who ruled the region a thousand years ago. This is a great set-up for the fantastically well-produced The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh, a story-packed low-Level hexcrawl with lots going on and plenty of plots for the Player Characters to get involved in. It is also a fine sequel to the equally as good Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow (and that is worth picking up too) and both are written for use with Old School Essentials, but The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh is a just that much more fun with its combination of Hammer Horror with shades of Monty Python.

Aces Over The Adriatic – A Solo RPG
Critical Kit Ltd. ($15/£12)
Since lockdown there has been a rise in interest in and play of the solo journaling games that rather than tell a story in the choose-your-own-adventure-path of classics like The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, provide the situations and the prompts that the player will react to in order to write the story of his character’s experiences and how he reacts to them. Many offer a chance to experience and tell a story of horror or wonder, such as a Thousand Year Old Vampire or Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, but Aces Over The Adriatic takes the reader back barely a century to explore the wonders of the age in the gleaming skies over the azure of the Adriatic. In the latter half of the Jazz Age, the cutting age technology and the future of flight lay in the seaplane! In a golden age of aeronautical development, experimentation, and speed, the great nations of the era competed to win the Schneider Cup, awarded to the fastest seaplane in the competition held twice a year. As a pilot, the reader not only gets to fly the greatest aeroplanes of the age and enter the Schneider Cup, but soar into the skies and embrace the romance of the air. However, this is a solo journalling game inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso, so the pilot has to deal with air pirates as well as his rivals and the weather! This is a chance for the reader to tell the stories of his pilot’s adventures and encounters with most famous men and women of the time in a glorious epic of another age.

Moria – Through the Doors of Durin
Free League Publishing ($46/£36)
For all the dungeons that the roleplaying hobby has given us in the last half century, there is the one dungeon from literature that inspired them all and lives in our imagination—Moria, from Tolkien’s Middle-earth. In The Lord of the Rings we discover the fate of Balin’s expedition and see Gandalf confronted by the great evil that is the Balrog, Durin’s Ban, but in Moria – Through the Doors of Durin for The One Ring, Second Edition, we get to explore it ourselves. Originally the city of Dwarrowdelf, the seat of a Dwarven kingdom, for centuries it has been infested with Orcs, Goblins, and, of course, much, much worse. However, it has a scope and grandeur that could never be mapped out in a single book, being too large and extensive to map every nook and cranny, so instead, Moria – Through the Doors of Durin details over twenty great Landmarks, each a potential destination involving danger and adventure, and each a major location within the mines. Getting to them is no easy task though, so every trek to and between them these Landmarks, employs the Journey mechanics of The One Ring, so that whilst getting there can be fraught with dread and danger, the focus is what the Player-heroes discover at the Landmarks. Combine this with a hoard of Patrons, foes, encounters, and treasures, and the Loremaster has all the means to take her players and their heroes into the greatest dungeon in literature, whether for a single delve or an extended campaign!

BattleTech Universe
Catalyst Game Labs ($49.99/£45)
Whilst it might be first, Dungeons & Dragons is not the only roleplaying game or game with an anniversary in 2024. BattleTech: A Game of Armoured Combat was published in 1984 and in the forty years since, through multiple publishers, the game has received numerous sets of new rules, supplements, several ranges of miniatures—both plastic and metal, over one hundred novels, a cartoon series, a collectible card game, and multiple computer games. All of which has constantly developed the setting and background and stories to the Inner Sphere—and beyond—at the beginning of the thirty-first century, so that from the beginning of the Fourth Succession War to capture of Terra by the returning the Clans, the focus is upon one-and-twenty-six years of history! It is however, a rich, detailed, and daunting history, so difficult to fully grasp and comprehend. However, BattleTech Universe is a sourcebook that presents the history to BattleTech is an easy to digest and understand fashion, highlighting the factions and individuals and their objectives, at every juncture and turn of events, all lavishly illustrated drawing upon artwork form forty years of BattleTech games, supplements, and novels.

Dreams and Machines
Modiphius Entertainment ($45/£35)
Most post-apocalyptic roleplaying games present harsh and unforgiving futures, with technology that has to be scavenged and hard fought for, but the future of Dreams and Machines is more positive and hopeful, set on a colony world where everyone can see the signs of the technology that turned on their ancestors and triggered the Builder War. These are the Wakers, the mechs built to serve the Builder, a programme to develop resource and power control, which litter the landscape and everyone fears will react and carry out the instructions of their corrupt programming. This is a world where the Player Characters work to build their community and forge links with other communities, to make lives better and protect them against dangers such as the Wakers and the Thralls, humans wrapped in loops of wire and marked with ash and paint, who up out of the ground to aggressively raid and steal food and technology from the communities. One of the interesting legacies of the technology is the way in which it can be interacted with, through GLIFs, or ‘Graphic Layer Instruction Format’ patterns that that once learned enable Archivists to use them spells to instruct technology and the Wakers, whilst the Spears, dedicated to protecting communities with their vicious Electrospears, mark themselves with Hunter-GLIFs that temporarily conceal them from the optical sensors of hostile machines. Overall, Dreams and Machines feels cleaner, more positive, and more hopeful than other roleplaying games of its genre.

Call of Cthulhu: Arkham
Chaosium, Inc. ($59.99/£48.99)
The city of Arkham crown—if not the jewel that is Miskatonic University—in the milieu of Lovecraft’s fiction, the New England town at its heart, witch-haunted and fabled, rich in secrets and conspiracies and crime. Call of Cthulhu: Arkham returns it to print for call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, to detail everything from town and its history, its inhabitants, its shops and its societies to its dread secrets and even worse, the people and things that keep them! Just as the original Arkham Unveiled was in 1990, this supplement is the keystone to the Lovecraft Country series of scenario anthologies and setting books, and it enables the classic Call of Cthulhu Investigator to remain at home and have a family and a job to investigate the strangeness all around him rather than going on some expensive round the world, never to be seen again. This sets up a very different style of campaign, one based in the community as much as it is in the surrounding region with the Investigators discovering secrets and facing threats which are much closer to home. Call of Cthulhu: Arkham is a great updating of a classic supplement and setting that successfully makes them both more accessible and useable, whilst laying the groundwork for a terrible series of encounters and threats to faced by the Investigators in the future. (And if this is not enough Arkham, then Welcome to Arkham: An Illustrated Guide for Visitors to the Town of ARKHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, and Environs Including DUNWICH, INNSMOUTH, and KINGSPORT is also good.)

Outgunned Adventure
Two Little Mice ($55/£45)
Sadly, we do not have an official Indiana Jones roleplaying game, but we do have one which will do all of the action of the Pulp action and archaeology genre. This is Outgunned Adventure, a roleplaying game inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Mummy, which of course, sends the adventurers off in search of treasures and secrets in the remotest parts of the world, from deep in the jungles of Central America to the sandy deserts of Egypt, from the mountains of the Himalayas to the islands of the South Seas, more often than not, chased by rival archaeologists and treasure hunters, cultists and Nazis. The heroes and heroines of Outgunned Adventure must search and research, jump and duck, and punch and kick their way to glory and success if they are get that invaluable treasure to the right place and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands! Outgunned Adventure is a Genre book for Outgunned, the Cinematic Action RPG inspired by Die Hard, Kingsman, Ocean’s Eleven, Hot Fuzz, and much, much more. Outgunned—and thus Outgunned Adventure—is a roleplaying game in which the Adventurers cannot fail. At worst, they can succeed in an uninteresting way, so it is better to gamble in succeeding in a more exciting and thrilling fashion in keeping with the genre! Outgunned Adventure is fast playing and captures all of the pace and excitement of some our favourite action films.

XCRAWL Classics Roleplaying Game
Goodman Games ($59.99/£45.99)
Imagine a world where the number one sport is not football or cricket, but a death sport called Xtreme Dungeon Crawling! Some adventurers do delve deep into the caverns and labyrinths below the earth, but if they really want to become famous, they turn Professional and form teams which enrol in leagues which stage manufactured dungeons live-streamed via spellphones throughout the North American Empire and beyond. If they can survive the arena, with its horrific monsters, lethal traps, magical hazards, and challenging puzzles, then they had better wish their agent is good, because he has to navigate the shark-infested waters of corporate sponsorship, rival teams and their agents, the networks, and even the Action Guild, responsible for running the events. But then it is the only way to become the superstar influencers and live celebrity lifestyles few in the Empire can imagine, backed up with for endorsement deals and corporate sponsorships, and the fabulous cash prizes earned for slaying monsters. Using the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game rules, what the XCRAWL Classics Roleplaying Game does to take Dungeons & Dragons-style play and modernises it with all of the razzmatazz and energy modern wrestling! This is as witty and as entertaining to play as it sounds and creates some great over-the-top gaming.

Pendragon Core Rulebook
Chaosium, Inc.  ($49.99/£39.99)
The Pendragon Core Rulebook returns to print the classic Arthurian roleplaying game that designer Greg Stafford considered be his masterpiece with a brand new, illuminated edition. It provides all of the rules and details to create young Cyrmic knights ready to ride out in service to the liege lord and ultimately King Arthur, to go in search of adventure and quests, to attend court and participate in tournaments and more. There is so much more to Pendragon with the Pendragon Core Rulebook covering the creation of a Player-knight and the duties he will undertake, combat, and the duties of a knight, but focusing very much on how he will behave and carry himself. At the core of the game are thirteen pairs of Personality Traits—Chaste and Lustful, Honest and Deceitful, Valorous and Cowardly, and so on—that the player will roleplay as they determine how his knight will act, usually in the best interests of the knight in mind, but at other times, especially when the knight is being tested, against the interests of the knight, and possibly those of his fellow knights! The Personality Traits are flexible though, and will change over time, enabling a player to roleplay his knight becoming a better person, knowing that sometimes, the Personality Traits will tell him otherwise. The Pendragon Core Rulebook provides everything that a player needs to begin playing and the Game Master with the basic rules, thus laying the groundwork for the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Book and Great Pendragon Campaign to come.

This is Free Trader Beowulf
Mongoose Publishing ($59.99/£45)
In the year of its fiftieth anniversary, it was no surprise that Dungeons & Dragons got all the fanfare and the attention, but 2024 also saw the release of another good history of another long-lived game. Indeed, there are very few roleplaying games that have the depth and detail and storied history to have an actual book devoted them, but Traveller is one of them. With multiple editions and multiple publishers, Traveller has almost as many years to explore in This is Free Trader Beowulf from Mongoose Publishing. This charts the history and development of the world’s longest running Science Fiction roleplaying game, examining the many decisions and changes made with each new edition and supplement, not just upon the part of the creators and developers, but also the fans who would make their own contributions too. Accompanied discussions of books that would have been and comparisons with the rest of the hobby for context as well as lengthy lists of everything published for the roleplaying game in each of its iterations, This is Free Trader Beowulf is written by the authors of the Designers & Dragons series of roleplaying histories and he provides a thoroughly detailed and well researched book that every fan of Traveller will want and every roleplayer with an interest in the development and history of roleplaying games.