The Putney Pirate

When you are called into to investigate a violent assault at an address in Putney, Southwest London, it sounds like any other day on the job in Putney, let alone London. When it turns out that that the assailant is described by an eyewitness as looking like, “… [S]omething straight out of one of those pirate films.”, then you know this is no ordinary case. It is, instead, a case for The Folly. Or rather, the ‘Special Assessment Unit’ of London Metropolitan Police Service, which in particular deals with magic and the Demi-Monde, and under the command of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, registered practitioner of Newtonian magic, is increasing the number of its operational staff as crimes involving magic also rise. Which includes the Player Characters, who are then assigned to investigate the affray at the house in Kingsmere Close. Whilst the victims of the assault are not saying much, it quickly becomes clear that they are up to no good, as they have turned the house into a cannabis farm and are not the actual owners of the house. Further, once an Initial Vestigium Assessment has been conducted, it confirms that magic was used in the assault, and that very definitely means that this is a case for the Folly. So where is the owner of the house? Who is the man dressed like a pirate, quite likely an unlicensed practitioner of magic, and why did he attack the operators of a cannabis farm in a quiet corner of Southwest London? All pressing questions in Jimmy’s Last Dance: A Swashbuckling Case File of Family Intrigue.

Jimmy’s Last Dance: A Swashbuckling Case File of Family Intrigue is an investigation and case file for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game, based on the Rivers of London novels by Ben Aaronovitch. Published by Chaosium, Inc., this is a lengthier case file than previous releases for the roleplaying game, one that will probably take two or so sessions to play through. Or it can be added to campaign, perhaps run after ‘The Bookshop’ from the core rulebook or the case files, Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game and The Font of All Evil: Murder and Mayhem Besides the Thames. One issue perhaps with the scenario is that it set in a specific year and that it involves a political scandal that was at its height at the time. The year is 2016 and the scandal is The Windrush Scandal. Of course, the authors advise the Game Master to handle the issue with care and it is certainly not a problem that The Windrush Scandal is part of the scenario—in fact, it is actually woven into the plot of the case file—but rather that the timeframe is quite specific and thus difficult to shift the case file to another year.

There are multiple plot strands to the investigation, ones that will lead the Player Characters to a criminal gang, a solicitor with less than ethical standards, a rotten son-in-law and a bare-suspecting daughter, and an old lady with interesting secrets of her own. Then ultimately to the ‘pirate’ who attacked the cannabis farm and who has his own agenda throughout the scenario. Sometimes that and his movements will intersect with those of the Player Characters and their investigation. Although they can return to the Folly to conduct research, most of the investigation is confined to the borough of Putney itself and involves lots of Police dogwork—interviews, surveillance, and so on. Over the course of the investigation, the Player Characters will be conducting multiple interviews, all of which nicely presented to help the Game Master answer their questions and portray the various NPCs. In addition, there are some decent handouts that the Player Characters will be able to find through various research avenues.

There is good advice for the Game Master throughout the scenario. This starts with suggested Player Character types and roles, how to portray a pirate without sounding like Robert Newton, and continues with notes from both Peter Grant and Ben Aaronovitch. It is recommended that at least one Player Character be a police officer or detective and that one be a Newtonian apprentice or hedge wizard. Suggestions are given too, if the players want to roleplay pre-generated characters from the core rulebook. The oddest advice is on various pieces of British vernacular, such as the meaning of the term ‘old bag’ when used as a pejorative to describe a woman, old or not. Whilst a British audience will find this amusing, for a non-British Game Master, it explains the vernacular and gives alternatives where necessary. This gives her the choice of enforcing the verisimilitude with the given terms or using less pejorative ones. The structure of the scenario is nicely supported with both a relationship map and a plot progression chart, to help the Game Master keep track of the investigation and more importantly, the location of the ‘pirate’.

Physically, Jimmy’s Last Dance: A Swashbuckling Case File of Family Intrigue is clean, tidy, and easy to use. The maps and plot progression diagram are easy to use, the advice is good throughout, and the portraits of the various NPCs are excellent.

Jimmy’s Last Dance: A Swashbuckling Case File of Family Intrigue is a richly detailed investigation that combines parochially British charm and menace, backed up with good advice for the Game Master—and if things go right, a cozy ending.

—oOo—

Chaosium, Inc. will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

The Little Book of Death ...in Spaace!

Escape the Dark Sector: The Game of Deep Space Adventure is about survival. About making a break from the cell of the detention block of a vast space station where they have found themselves incarcerated. They have an opportunity to escape their imprisonment, but the route they must take, between the detention block and their spaceship, is fraught with danger. The escapees must find their way out of the Detention Level, through the Heart of the Station, and then the Forgotten Zones to their impounded spaceship—and escape! Published by Themeborne Ltd., Escape the Dark Sector is the Science Fiction sequel to Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure, which was inspired by the Fighting Fantasy series of solo adventure books and also the dark fantasy artwork of those books. As with its fantasy predecessor, Escape the Dark Sector can be played solo or collectively and 

offered plenty of replay value and variability with six Character Cards, fifty-three Chapter Cards—fifteen of which form the encounter deck, and five Boss Cards. Then of course, there are game’s three expansions: Escape the Dark Sector – Mission Pack 1: Twisted Tech, Escape the Dark Sector – Mission Pack 2: Mutant Syndrome, and Escape the Dark Sector – Mission Pack 3: Quantum Rift. Each of these provided players with new characters to play, a new mechanic—which meant a new challenge to overcome, new equipment, and of course, a new Boss standing in the way of the players’ escape. However, when it came to death—and there is no denying that Escape the Dark Sector is definitely about death, as well as escaping, if not more so—what neither Escape the Dark Sector, nor any of its expansions, or even Escape the Dark Castle, could offer was much mote than a mechanical outcome whenever a player’s character dies in the game.

The solution is Death in Deep Space, the Science Fiction equivalent of The Death Book for Escape the Dark Castle. This is a book of over one hundred death scenes, each corresponding to a particular Chapter or Boss. It is very easy to use. Whenever a character dies as a result of the events in a Chapter or the showdown with a Boss, he checks the relevant entry in the pages of The Death Book. This is made possible because every card in Escape the Dark Castle as well as in all three of its expansions is marked with a unique code. Cross reference the code with corresponding entry in the book, whether for a Chapter or a Boss card, read out the description provided, and so provide an unfitting, but final end for your character, followed by that of everyone else.

For example, the details on the Boss card, ‘The Alien Queen’ reads as follows:

“Die, humansss!”

The Alien Queen was lying wait! Jets of venom fly towards you as she pounces—YOU must roll two HIT DICE now.

If a player should die in the course of this final confrontation before he and his companions, always a strong possibility in Escape the Dark Sector, he picks up Death in Deep Space and after finding the entry for ‘The Alien Queen’, he reads aloud the following:

The Alien Queen

Once it enters your bloodstream, the paralysing venom of the Alien Queen works quickly – a spreading rigidity coursing through your entire body, locking your joints one by one until you are all but paralysed. Even your eyelids cannot close, and you are forced to watch in horror as the terrible creature captures your fellow crew with equal ease.

With a series of hissed commands to her countless, scurrying servitor spawn, you are all dragged back her vast, deck-spanning nest. There, a slick, black, fleshy membrane covers the walls and beneath the vaguely humanoid shapes of her decomposing victims are still recognisable. Their shallow breaths rise and fall in eerie synchronicity, an indication that their suffering is yet to be ended. Soon, you and your crew join them.

Once in place, your spines are sliced open. The shimmering spools of nerve fibre that spill out are intertwined with those of the other captives suspended around – the connection sealed with a sticky, mucus coating. In this way, you become part of the fabric of the hive, a sensory node in a living web, lining the walls as far as the eye can see, warning the hive of approaching threats and passing the news back through the biotic chain in an instant.

For the rest of your days, your pain is theirs and theirs is yours; you see what they see and hear what they hear, your collective existence painfully prolonged in service to your bestial captor.

Your adventure ends here.

Physically, Death in Deep Space is a neat and tidy, if plain affair. A page of introduction explains how to use the book and contains the book’s single illustration which shows where the unique code for the Chapter or Boss card is located. Then each entry has a page of its own. There is a degree of repetition to the entries, but only a little, and it really only becomes apparent when reading the book from end to end, which is not its intended use. A small and relatively slim book, Death in Deep Space fits easily into Escape the Dark Sector: The Collector’s Box Set.

Death in Deep Space is book of endings, but one that provides a final narrative and some context to that death. Escape the Dark Sector is an enjoyable game, but character deaths can feel little, “Is that it?”. With Death in Deep Space, it is no longer the fact that you died, but very much how you died. Grim and ghoulish, The Death Book brings the death of every character, and with it, the game of Escape the Dark Sector to a nasty and unfortunate, but fitting end.

—oOo—

Themeborne Ltd. will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

Meddling Mysteries

It could be the seventies. It could be the eighties. It could be nineties. It could be now. Whatever the decade, the world is in danger and refuses to believe it. Creatures of the night stalk the darkness and only you have the knowledge and bravery to face their danger head on. So ready your UV torch, sharpen your stakes, bless your holy water, and load up the mystery wagon, because tonight you are going monster hunting! Are you ready to save the world and have nobody notice? Then that makes you a vampire hunter—fearless or otherwise! This is the simple set-up to Bite Me!, a scenario and mini-supplement for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy, published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition. Some of the entries in the series have been expansive, such as Orcs & Oubliettes and Strange Science, providing a detailed setting and an scenario, whilst others in the series have tended to be one-shot, film night specials. Bite Me! falls into the latter category.

As with other supplements for ACE!, both the genre and inspiration for Bite Me! are obvious. However, there is a twist. The genre involves vampires and vampire-hunting, so the obvious inspiration is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is not though, the only inspiration for Bite Me! and the other adds very tongue (or is that fang?)-in-cheek tone to the whole affair. That inspiration is the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, Scooby-Doo. So, this injects an extra dose of cheesiness into the play of the Awfully Cheerful Engine!. The bulk of Bite Me! is dedicated to a single adventure, ‘Darkness, BITES!’ and to that end, it provides four pre-generated Player Characters. However, it also gives the means for the players to create their own characters. These include suggested Roles such as talking Animals, Clerics, Druids, Slayers, Vampires, and Werewolves. To these are added the new Roles of Fortune Teller and Paranormal Investigator. The Fortune Teller gains the Power stat and can cast magic, but to begin with, does not know any spells. The Role also grants a bonus when using a tarot deck and knows if spirits are harmful. The Paranormal Investigator begins play never having encountered the supernatural, but has unveiled a lot of hoaxes. The Role gains a bonus when looking for clues and interacting with the authorities, and starts play with the Mystery Wagon, a mid-sized van.

In addition, various items of equipment are listed as being of use. These include garlic, holy symbol, tarot deck, EMF meter, pure salt, and more. In addition, there are stats for various things that the Player Characters might encounter, such as devil, mummy, poltergeist, and wolfman. The most amusing of these are the Crooked Property Developer (all together now, “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!”) and the Pirate Ghost.

The four pre-generated Player Characters consist of Fluffy Winters, reluctant vampire slayer; Lilo Thornberg, witty fortune teller; Rooby Roo, faithful dog; and Ted Bones, cheery paranormal investigator. All of whom are very knowingly tongue-in-cheek in being drawn from their sources.

The adventure, ‘Darkness, BITES!’ begins with news reports of strange occurrences at a rundown amusement park. It could be ghosts or it could be something else! In fact, it is both, because the adventure really leans into both of its inspirations. So, if the players are expecting there to be a Crooked Property Developer, they will not be disappointed, and if they are expecting ghosts, they will not be disappointed either. That though, is not the end of the scenario. The Crooked Property Developer is hiding something and that tips the Player Characters into a much darker storyline, which will see them race around town to find signs of occult and even vampiric activity—helped by a local psychic and chased by another classic monster—before finally tracking the evil down and confronting it in its lair. Not so much Transylvania, as Transylvania USA! The scenario is nicely detailed and plotted out and easy to run. It is not set in a specific city, so can be set anywhere the Game Master decides. It just needs to be big enough to have an abandoned amusement park. The play of it should take two sessions or so to play through.

Physically, Bite Me! is well presented with reasonable artwork. It needs a slight edit in places.

Bite Me! is very light in terms of its treatment of its inspirations—but then it has to be. The aim is to make those inspirations easy to grasp by Game Master and player alike and enable the players to engage with them as little or as much as they would like. Which is all part of making the main focus of Bite Me!, the adventure ‘Darkness, BITES!’, just as easy and as quick to prepare. Bite Me! should provide the Game Master and her players with a session or two’s worth fang-tastic and snacka-licious fun. All they have to is provide the snacks.

—oOo—

EN Publishing will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

Friday Filler: Souvenirs from Venice

The last two weeks you have spent in the city of Venice have been amazing. You have visited the Doge’s Palace, St. Mark's Basilica, and the Bridge of Sighs, as well as taken a gondola ride on the Grand Canal, explored the Rialto Market, and taken a day trip to the island of Murano to discover its unique glassblowing tradition. The food and wine have been good too, but now your holiday is nearly over. Your flight home leaves tomorrow, but you have one left one last thing you have to do to the last minute—gifts to take home for your friends and family. In fact, you are not really sure that you have enough time to search the shops for right gifts and get to Marco Polo International Airport for your flight home. It is not helped by the fact that the three friends you are buying for, hate it when they are not treated equally, but you have hired a gondola and you are going to search high and low for the right gifts for the right people—or miss your flight trying!

This is the set-up for Souvenirs from Venice, another game from Oink Games, the Japanese publisher best known for Scout. It is a set-collecting game designed for two to five players, aged eight and up, that can be played in thirty minutes, and it is from the same designers who did Deep Sea Adventure. The aim of the game is three sets of matching souvenirs and get to the airport. At the end of the game, each matching set of souvenirs will score points, whilst souvenirs that do not match will lose a player points. The players have to find the right souvenirs, make sure they do not have wrong souvenirs in their hands, and get to the airport. Only a player who gets to the airport in time will have a chance of being the winner.

Besides the rules in French, German, and Spanish as well as English, Souvenirs from Venice consists of forty-eight Souvenir Tiles, thirty Money Tokens, five Summary Cards, an Airport Card, a single die, and five Gondolas. The Souvenir Tiles range in value from five to ten and in turn depict Venetian Glass, Venetian Masks, Leather Goods, Gondolier Shirts, Squid Ink Pasta, and Fridge Magnets. Each Souvenir Tile is actually a shop and items are the goods they sell. Two depict the ‘Pigeon’ and ‘The Pigeon Feed Seller’. The die is marked one, two, and three, rather than one to six, and the gondolas are done in brightly coloured wood. The Summary Cards are reference cards for the play of the game.

Game set-up is simple. Each player receives a gondola, six Money Tokens, and a Sun. The Souvenir Tiles are laid out in a seven-by-seven grid, or five-by-five if two players, all face down, whilst the Airport Card is placed in one corner instead of a Souvenir Tile. The grid is open as the spaces in between represent the canals of Venice where players’ gondolas will travel, moving from intersection to intersection. All of the gondolas are placed on the Airport Card where they start play.

On his turn, each player must do three things in strict order. These are ‘Research’, ‘Move’, and ‘Buying or Selling’. In the ‘Research’ step, the player flips over any tile face down so that everyone can see it. In the ‘Move’, the player rolls the die and moves his gondola that exact number of spaces, hopping over any other player’s gondola in the way. ‘Buying or Selling’ gives a player two options. If he buys, it can be done in secret, looking at a Souvenir Tile adjacent to his gondola, but keeping it hidden from the other players, or he can buy any face up tile. Either way, he replaces it with Money Token. If he sells, he places a Souvenir Tile in his hand on the table face down, replacing a Money Token which he takes.

If the ‘Pigeon’ and ‘The Pigeon Feed Seller’ are both revealed—and they have to be revealed face up when discovered, they force each player to pass a Souvenir Tiles (or a Money Token if they have no Souvenir Tile) to the player on his left. This can mix things up, forcing a player to scramble to find matching Souvenir Tiles with the ones he has in his hand. However, this really comes into play later in the game rather than earlier, as the earlier it happens, the lower the chance it has of mucking up a player’s hand.

Souvenirs from Venice is a primarily a push-your-luck game, although it does have a memory element in that a player may need to remember the Souvenir Tiles he has looked at and where they are. However, what a player is mostly doing is pushing his luck to three sets of Souvenir Tiles, ideally of a higher rather than lower value. Of course, there are more of the latter than the former. Thankfully, a player can choose to sell to get rid of a poor value Souvenir Tile if he knows where one with a better value is or if he simply wants it out of his hand. The latter may be necessary because the other push-your-luck element of game is the timer element. Once all of the Souvenir Tiles have been bought or flipped over and face up, the flight leaves the airport. Anyone not at the airport by then, cannot score any points for the Souvenir Tile sets they have collected and automatically lose. Any player with sets of Souvenir Tiles at the airport gets to score, and the player with highest score wins.

Souvenirs from Venice is decently presented, if as with every Oink Games title, packed tightly into its little box. The quality of the components is good and the rules are clearly written.

Souvenirs from Venice is a solid, satisfying little game. It is a light game, better suited to family audiences and has a surprisingly decent theme that matches that lightness.

—oOo—

Oink Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIX] The Travellers’ Digest #6

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone. Although not the case now, the popularity of Traveller would spawn several fanzines, of which The Travellers’ Digest, published by Digest Group Publications, was the most well known and would eventually transform from a fanzine into a magazine.

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

To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, other supplements would be required depending on the adventure. Of course, that was in 1985, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since. The campaign is also specifically written for use with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created used the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest #6 was published in 1986 with the success of the Origins Convention, which took place from July 3rd to 6th in Los Angeles, very much still on the minds of the editors. The event cemented the relationship between Digest Group Publications and Game Designers Workshop and laid the groundwork for a number of forthcoming products, including 101 Robots. The editorial also gave an overview of future issues of the fanzine and where they would take the heroes of ‘The Grand Tour’.

The sixth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ in The Travellers’ Digest #6 is ‘Feature Adventure 6: The Most Valuable Prey’, written by Nancy and Robert Parker. The starting date for the adventure is 212-1102, or the two-hundredth-and-twelfth day of the year 1102 and surprisingly, the adventure does not need anything other than the standard books required by the campaign. The adventure itself is set on the world of Kaiid in the Shuna Subsector of the Lishun Sector. It is hot, wet world, described as a paradise, and is the seat of Count LeMorc, who permits parts of the world to be used as a hunting reserve. The primary target for the hunters is the Minlad, a bipedal creature that is easy to hunt and valued for its fur. However, its numbers are falling, a bone of contention between hunters who want to continue hunting it unabated, the hunters who want to limit the numbers that can be hunted, and environmentalists who want it stopped all together. Add into that is the fact that there are ongoing rumours and supposed sightings of giants out in the jungle.

The aim of the scenario is for Player Characters is to discover and prove to others that the Minlad are not just some simple species to be hunted, but a sentient species. Of course, hunting a sentient species is illegal in the Third Imperium—if it can be proved! This includes not only the hunters, but also an on-world Scout team already conducting a survey and Count LeMorc. The Minlad are a primitive species, but they are capable of communication and part of the adventure involves interacting with the Minlad and learning to understand their speech. This is a fascinating scenario that really will challenge the Player Characters as they try to save and understand the Minlad without the hunters reacting badly to the loss of income and potentially, to the realisation as to what they have done.

The world of Kaiid is described in some detail. This includes silhouettes and descriptions other fauna found on the planet, a map of the single large settlement near the Starport, and full information about the Minlad and their language. The adventure also includes a list of ‘Rumours, News, and Other Activities’ which can be used to drive the scenario and as well as a specialised crowd-swaying task for use with the Universal Task Profile.

This is a challenging scenario to roleplay because the Player Characters will need to a do a lot of persuasion and learn another language. It is also challenging to run, and that is due to its organisation. The scenario is presented as a series of ‘Nuggets’, a format which would be developed in later issues and in scenarios for Mega-Traveller. This compartmentalises the scenario’s information and/or scenes into separate sections to make it both non-linear and easier to run, but it is not as effective as it should be. Ultimately, what it is missing is a good reason for the Player Characters to want to visit Kaiid and a better overview of the nuggets. Otherwise, a genuinely fresh and interesting scenario.

The ’Playing the Characters’ series continues its deeper look at and guide to roleplaying the four pre-generated Player Characters for ‘The Grand Tour’. This time, it should be no surprise given the first contact nature of ‘Feature Adventure 6: The Most Valuable Prey’, it is the turn of the ex-scout, Dur Telemon. With these, it is almost worth holding starting a playthrough of ‘The Grand Tour’ so that every player has one for their character. The scout/scout service strand to the issue continues with Nancy Parker’s ‘Persons and Unpersons’, which looks at what signifies Intelligence and how the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service defines it. The article first looks at the primary indicators—language and tool use—and then how the scout service reacts to it. This is an interesting read that nicely supports the adventure in the issue.

The Travellers’ Digest #6 details the Shuna Subsector, Subsector I of the Lishun Sector and part of the Domain of Antares and develops the Lishun Sector with ‘Library Data of the Lishun Sector’. All decent background, whilst Joe Fugate continues the fanzine’s examination and development of the UTP or Universal Task Profile in ‘The Gaming Digest: Tasks’ with a look at uncertain tasks. At the time, this would have been an interesting herald of what was to come, foreshadowing the upcoming adoption of the UTP for MegaTraveller. Today, it is less interesting unless the reader has a specific interest in the mechanical and rules development of Traveller. Lastly, the Traveller Tech Brief in this issue is ‘Grav Belts’. This fully details and describes the appearance, function, and operation of the grav belt. It includes a section on the use of grav belts in military operations which will certainly have application in some Game Masters’ campaigns.

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest #6 is, as with all of the issues so far, very obviously created using early layout software. The artwork is not great, but it does its job and it is far from dreadful.

—oOo—

The Travellers’ Digest #6 was the first issue of the fanzine to be reviewed. This was by Herb Petro in The Imperium Staple Issue #8 (October, 1986). Of the Feature Adventure in the issue, he wrote, “The feature adventure, The Most Valuable Prey, uncovers the truth about the mysterious “Giants” on the world of Kalid in the Lishun sector. I don’t want to give away anything to those who might be potential players, but it is very good. In my opinion better that the feature adventure in issue #5.” He praised several of the other articles in the issue, of which he said overall, “TRAVELERS’ Digest has been growing. This issue is better than the last and the next promises to be even better.”

—oOo—

Where The Traveller’s Digest #6 is at its weakest is making the connection in ‘The Grand Tour’ with the events of the previous issue and making clear why the Player Characters are on a minor hunting world. However, once they are, ‘Feature Adventure 6: The Most Valuable Prey’ is a very good scenario once the Game Master has it set up and worked her way around its Nuggets. The rest of the issue is good, but it is the scenario that really stands out for its depth and detail, as well as the demands it is going to place on the players (and their characters).

[Fanzine Focus XXXIX] The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game from Goodman Games. Some of these fanzines provide fantasy support for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but others explore other genres for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. One such fanzine is The Valley Out of Time.

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

The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core is the fifth issue in the series and like the fourth issue, The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions, before it, it does something more than just give the Judge one more dinosaur or megafauna or one more fight with one more dinosaur or megafauna. For the Judge that wants fights and monsters, the first three issues of The Valley Out of Time were perfect, but for the Judge wanting more, they were a disappointment. What the series promises is set out on the back cover: “The Valley Out of Time is a series of ’zine-sized adventures from SGP. This valley can be placed in any ongoing campaign, and is set in the “Neanderthal Period” of development. Huge monsters – both dinosaurs and otherwise – and devolved humanoids plague the area, and only the hardiest of adventurers will prevail!” The problem is that the series failed to deliver on anything more than just dinosaurs and at best, very minor encounters, all of which emphasised combat rather than interaction or exploration. Certainly, until The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions, the series failed to provide what might be called an adventure as promised on the back cover. In addition, it also failed to provide anything in the way of an overview of the Lost Valley and its history and it also failed to address anything in the way of Player Character motivation as to what did once they were in the Lost Valley.

In fact, The Valley Out of Time did not so much fail to address Player Character motivations as actually refuse to address them. So, it is actually odd to see the author write, “In the Valley Out of Time series, much of the background motivations have been left out, specifically to allow freedom and flexibility of design for the judge. However, in this penultimate Part 5 of the series, let’s look at some specific motivations for the adventurers to ease the burden on the poor judge.” The question is, if the lack of motivations for the adventurers was such a burden for the Judge, why did the author place that burden on the Judge? Not for one issue, but four issues? Why did the author ignore for so long the two fundamental questions that any player is going to ask upon finding his character in the Lost Valley—“How did I get here?” and “What do I do now?”. Obviously, such questions are not going to be answered in the fanzine, but what they highlight is a conceptual design flaw upon the part of the author. Instead of providing options in terms of how and why the Player Characters are in the Lost Valley and what they might do next that the Judge could take, use, adapt, or ignore, he gave the Judge no choice but to create her own. The author asked the Judge to create content and do work that he should have done himself. That is the burden he placed upon the Judge and it shows a fundamental misunderstanding as to why the Judge would have bought The Valley Out of Time series in the first place.

There is also some sense of what the Lost Valley is with this issue. Previously, it has never gone beyond being an isolated range “…(i)nhabited by ‘unevolved’ humanoid tribes, mega-fauna, giant insectoid life, and other unusual hazards.” However, with this issue, the author tells us that it was “Originally created as a pristine and unspoiled oasis outside of others, the Timeless Valley as nature intended – with a balance of benefits as well as misery.” The description raises another question—‘Who created the Lost Valley?’ Sadly, it is another question that the fanzine ignores.

The majority of The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core is devoted to ‘Rotten at the Core’, a scenario for between four and six Player Characters of Sixth to Eighth Level. This is also the first time that the series has suggested what Levels the Player Characters should be. Anyway, the scenario assumes the players and their characters will have played through one or more of the encounters in previous issues and later on in the scenario, that might have played through ‘Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?’, the scenario involving the Ophidian Beastmen, in the previous issue. Either way, by the beginning of the scenario, the Player Characters should have had some interaction with the Urman tribes and even befriended some of them. The Cict Urman tribes asks for the Player Characters’ help. Their leader, Barbreitte the Rose, was kidnapped by Ophidian Beastmen and taken to an underground complex reasons they do not understand. Of if the Player Characters have played through ‘Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?’, they will. The Cict Urman scouts have checked the area where she disappeared and suggest that her abductors might have taken her into the caves and sinkholes in the nearby hills known to be home to hideous monstrosities. The tribe also thinks that a hidden tribe which lives underground nearby might have some information.

Although quite detailed, there is actually very little to the scenario in terms of plot. The Player Characters can approach the Ophidian Beastmen cave complex and sneak in and attempt to find the Barbreitte the Rose, or alternatively make the trek to the Nua Urman tribe’s underground home and attempt to get information from them before finding the Ophidian Beastmen cave complex. Both locations are described in some detail and everything is given full stats, even the Nua Urman tribe and its caves, just in case that the Player Characters want to assault it. The journey to the Nua Urman is described as an interlude, but it is a very long interlude given that it makes up a third of the scenario in length. Consequently, so much of the Nua Urman description feels unnecessary to the play of the scenario unless the Player Characters simply want to slaughter them. That said, the Nua Urman are slightly more interesting in that they do use some interesting weapons, including diamond war axes and a last-ditch cannon that uses Blackstone powder. Whereas in Ophidian Beastmen cave complex will reveal greater threats and darker secrets that will probably lead to further adventures. The final encounter will be with very tough beastman, or Rakshasa.

What the Player Characters may learn is that there is a greater evil in the Lost Valley, a corruption that was accidentally overlooked when the valley was originally created—again, by whom?—and has since grown into a festering blackness that threatens the whole valley. This is ‘Yaath, Mother under the Hills’, a giant, amorphous, black globule of bile and evil. Effectively, an almost unkillable Great Old One that carries on the Lovecraftian feel to the Lost Valley begun with the Ophidian Beastmen. It is an end of campaign level confrontation, though the Judge will need to develop how the threat of Yaath manifests in the Lost Valley in order to lead the Player Characters to its lair…

What is notable about all of the encounters in ‘Rotten at the Core’ is that they presented for both Dungeon Crawl Classics and Mutant Crawl Classics, including both the stats for the monsters and the treasure that the Player Characters might find. So, for example, a rumpled sheet turns out to be a Flying Carpet for Dungeon Crawl Classics, but a Holo-Cloak for Mutant Crawl Classics. It good to see the distinction made clear and implemented throughout.

The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core is rounded out with an appendix of new monsters, essentially replicating the monsters and creatures given in the scenario, and the replication of the information on ‘Resources of the Valley’ with added detail of diamond. Lastly, there is joyous emptiness of the ‘GM Notes’ pages where the Judge is expected to write down all of the details that the author resolutely refuses to provide her with.

Physically, The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core is well presented and well written. The artwork is of a reasonable quality.

With The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core, the series presents its first big scenario. It is a decent enough combat and exploration-focused scenario, although its interlude is too long and does not add very much to the scenario whether the Player Characters decide to engage with it or ignore it. Given that it is written for Player Characters of Sixth to Eighth Level coming to the end of a ‘campaign’ in the Lost Valley, it feels right it should be in the penultimate issue, almost as if a campaign is coming to head and the Player Characters will face a major villain in the final part. Yet The Lost Valley series has not supported the Player Characters getting to this point in their exploration of the Lost Valley. It has never presented the Lost Valley as a setting, let alone a ‘campaign’. There have been only minor encounters in the first three issues, all of them of the same tone and set-up, and only proper scenarios in the fourth issue.

Ultimately, The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core begs yet more questions. “Why is the author giving us a full-length scenario now after ignoring them for so long?” and more importantly, “Why is the author so concerned with motivation all of a sudden after resolutely refusing to address it previously?” Addressing it so late in the fanzine’s run gives The Lost Valley a weird split identity as if the author wants it to be a proper campaign setting, but did not realise it until now. The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core shows how poorly the series was conceptualised and realised. Undoubtedly, there is good content in The Lost Valley, but the author has defiantly left the development of that content into something playable in the hands of the Judge.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIX] The Beholder Issue 4

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

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

The Beholder Issue 4 was probably published in July 1979, given that the fanzine was published monthly and on a regular basis throughout its run. The issue’s concerns are typical of the period for a fanzine devoted to Dungeons & Dragons—problems with different aspects of the roleplaying game and possible solutions, new monsters, new traps, new magical items, a dungeon, and so on, though no new spells. The editors—Michael Stoner and Guy Duke—state in their editorial that, “We feel that this issue is the best one so far.” whilst also noting that, “Contributions are now coming in in fair numbers and quite a lot of this issue is made up from them.” The latter is certainly true, whilst the quality of the fanzine, something that it was renowned for, shows slight improvement. The Beholder is yet to hit the highlights of its great adventures, but the promise is there in this issue. Similarly, even if the subject matters of the issue look familiarly parochial some thirty years on, the fanzine addresses them in a thoughtful manner.

The Beholder Issue 4 opens with ‘Wishes’, a short look at one of the perennial bugbears of high-level play in Dungeons & Dragons—the power of the wish. Whether from the Magic-User spell or the Ring of Three Wishes, the wish is open to abuse, both by players and the Dungeon Master. The players by demanding too much of it and the Dungeon Master by simply negating its effects and thus impeding the players’ enjoyment of the game. The solution is that powerful sources of wishes be guarded by, or in the possession of, suitably powerful monsters and that the Dungeon Master play the roll of the gods who do not want the heroes to overstep their bounds, such as using a wish to render themselves immortal, for example. There is discussion too, of the application and limitations of the Limited Wish and Altered Reality spells and overall, the advice is solid and useful.

‘Magical Weapons’ provides a new set of tables for rolling random magical weapons to account for the number of new weapon types presented in The Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and the lack of magical weapons available for certain Character Classes, such as the Druid, the Monk, and the Magic-user. Thus, there is a sub-table for the weird weapons at the end, such as the bo stick and the pick, plus of course, all of the polearms, like the bec de corbin and the guisarme-voulge. The tables are followed by a handful of new magical weapons, such as Flaming Arrows; the Chaotic Evil Pirate’s Cutlass, which is +1, +2 versus Good, +3 versus sea monsters, and detects hidden treasure within 25”; and the Illusion Quarterstaff, +1, which can appear as any weapon and inflict its damage as long as the defendant believes it to be a weapon of that type. These are nicely inventive and could easily find their place in a Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game today.

The first of several contributions to the fanzine by Martin Stollery is ‘Competition Chronicles: An account of an adventure in the Pyrus Complex (TB 1)’. This is a recounting of his play through or running of ‘Pyrus Complex’, the competition dungeon in The Beholder Issue One. The Player Characters are fractious and selfish, and barely co-operate throughout. The ‘every man for himself’ style of play—though exacerbated by the competition nature of the dungeon—looks dated and immature now, but it was common enough at the time and beyond.

The issue’s monsters are presented in a new style for the regular ‘Monster Summoning’ department—a style that is reminiscent of the Fiend Factory department of White Dwarf magazine at the time, even down to the inventive founts used for the monster names. There are eight monsters in total, three of which, the Leech Plant, the Vart, and the Bonwack, are the contribution of Andrew Whitcombe, editor of another fanzine of the time, Droll Drivel. There is some inventiveness here, but several also serve little function other than to confuse the players and their characters because they are new and will not have been encountered before. The Quazzle is inventive because it is harmless, but it looks too much like a Roper, so that adventurers keep attacking it, but it protects itself by teleporting away weapons used to attack it! The Dralt is a puffball-like and non-psionic variant of the Intellect Devourer which uses darkness magic to hide and charms its victims to attack each other. The Leech Plant is a bloodsucking plant which attaches itself to the calves of unwitting walkers and sucks their blood, increasing its Hit Points in doing so. The silliest creature is the Bonwack, blind balls of fur with large pincers on stalks and single legs on which they hop about the dungeon hunting for food. It should be noted that all of the creatures have a Monstermark System as devised by Don Turnbull and presented in the first three issues of White Dwarf and also The Best of White Dwarf Articles Vol. I.

The scenario in The Beholder Issue 4 is ‘The Mines of Mentorr’. Written by Martin Stollery, it is another competition dungeon and thus comes complete with pre-generated Player Characters—including a Trickster, as detailed in The Beholder Issue 1, and a scoring system. Designed for Player Characters of Fourth Level, it details a small Dwarven tin mine which was chosen by the great dwarven king Mentorr to house the tombs for himself and his descendants. Centuries later, the mad alchemist, Farjet, led a band of Gnolls, Bugbears, and evil mercenaries into the mines, slaughtered the Dwarves, and unaware of the tombs, expanded the mine into a laboratory where he could conduct his experiments far from the eyes of the lawful authorities. More recently, word has reached the outside world that he has perfected the Elixir of Life, giving him immortality. This is an affront to the gods, and whether in service of the gods of Law or Chaos, the Player Characters are sent into the complex to put an end to this blasphemy!

The adventure really has three strands to it. One is the old mine, the other is the secret tombs, and the another is the laboratory facilities, whilst the scoring system allows for various different objectives rather than just killing everything. Although the map is plain, the dungeon is decently thought out and so does not suffer from the randomness of the competition dungeons that appeared in the previous three issues. With a little updating, ‘The Mines of Mentorr’ could be run today without any difficulties and the players would be none the wiser. The adventure’s combination of decent design, theme, and background mean that it could also be added to a Dungeon Master’s campaign and again, the players would be none the wiser.

‘Tricks & Traps’ discusses the editors’ philosophy of trap design—challenge the players and their characters, rather than simply killing the latter and the use of monsters and their abilities in an intelligent manner. The article is supported by ‘Dangerous Digressions’ which presents a number of traps, all of them old of course, but some of them familiar today. ‘The Magic Mouth “Party Killer” Trap’ is a temple dedicated to demon worship. Apart from some statues, the only features of note are a candle and a statue of dragon’s head. If the candle is lit, the Magic Mouth on the dragon statue activates and says, “Demogorgon, Orcus, Juiblex” again and again until the spell expires. Even with a small chance to summon any one of these demon lords, this is simply evil… Others, like ‘The Round and Round Teleport Pit’, an infinite teleporting pit, is a very slightly less dangerous version of the classic, whilst ‘The Balanced Boulders Pit’ has a plank poking out of the wall of the pit, which when grabbed by a falling character, pivots and tips four boulders on top of him as he falls onto the single spike at the bottom of the pit, is equally familiar.

Lastly, ‘Thoughts On Ideas’ continues the discussion of Dungeon Master fiat begun in ‘Wishes’ at the beginning of the issue. It looks at the sort of ideas that players come up with in play and then repeat over and over. In addition to suggesting ways round simply banning player ideas that make game play stale or unbalanced, such as offering Experience Points to their characters or ruling it as being against the wishes of the gods, the article also gives its own good ideas. For example, having the Magic-User or Illusionist cast Invisibility several times over the course of several days so that the entire party is invisible before beginning an adventure or buying ‘padded’ belt pouches and backpacks to prevent bottles and phials of potions or holy water from breaking when a Player Character falls into a pit. These are all quite inventive and showcase the then style of play in which the players sort to gain an advantage for their characters against the Dungeon Master.

Physically, The Beholder, Issue 4 is slightly untidy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. The illustrations and the cartography are not actually that bad. Of course, every issue of the fanzine was published when personal publishing was still analogue and the possibilities of the personal computer and personal desktop publishing were yet to come. In the case of The Beholder that would never be taken advantage of.

The Beholder has a high reputation for content that is of good quality and playable. The Beholder, Issue 4 does not yet match that reputation, but the signs seen in The Beholder, Issue 3 are not only present, but getting stronger. Not everything is good in the issue, but that is offset by the fact that it does contain a number of thoughtful articles on what would have been traditional topics for Dungeons & Dragons and the adventure is the best to date. The Beholder, Issue 4 feels almost on the cusp of achieving the high quality it was renowned for.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIX] Scout Magazine #III

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a non-professional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, and Swords & Wizardry have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Old School Essentials.

Scout Magazine is a fanzine that comes packed with content that the Game Master can add to her Old School Essentials or change how it is played. This is no matter whether she uses the basic rules of Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy or the advanced options of Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. Although specially written for use with Old School Essentials, it is easily adapted to the retroclone of Game Master’s choice or even added to Dolmenwood, the setting and retroclone also published by Necrotic Gnome.

Scout Magazine #IIIwas published in November, 2024 by PBenardo. Unlike Scout Magazine #I and Scout #II before it, it only includes two new Classes, but it includes as normal, both new monsters and articles that add new rules and mechanics to the play of Old School Essentials. Unlike the first issue, Scout Magazine #III does not possess anything in the way of a theme, but the monsters do!

Instead of new character Classes, Scout Magazine Issue #III begins with a list of ‘Backgrounds’. Each Background represents a skill or trait that the Player Character gained prior to becoming an adventurer. Some are quite mundane like the Farmer, who can predict the weather, but others are a little odd. For example, ‘Iron Dome’ means that the Player Character has an iron plaque in his head, which grants a bonus on Saving Throws versus charm or suggestion or ‘Graveyard Caretaker’, which enables the Player Character to detect the undead with a successful Listen check! Many are useful, such as ‘Surgeon’ which enables the Player Character to restore a single Hit Point to a wounded creature. There is decent selection, but at just fourteen, there is not a lot of variety to choose from.

One Background from ‘Backgrounds’ is given as optional, but it is actually supported with a whole article of its own. The Background in question is the ‘Psion’ and the article is ‘Psionics’. At the start of every day, the Psion’s player rolls for how many different types of psionic powers the character can use that day. So, the powers are random and the number of times the Psion can use them per day is equal to his Level divided by five. However, bearing magical items prevents the use of psionics and interrupting the use of psionic powers inflicts damage on the user due to psychic backlash. The powers include Astral Projection, Mental Shield, Precognition, Psi Cloak, 15’ Radius, Telekinesis, Telepathy, and more. The stranger ones include ‘Brain Bruise’ which inflicts damage on the nervous system of a creature, whilst ‘Preternatural Hearing’ enables the Psion to listen through solid objects. Of course, ‘Preternatural Hearing’ should really be called ‘Clairaudience’. Overall, the article is serviceable treatment of psionics for Old School Essentials, but its inclusion points to the fact that much of Scout Magazine is going over old new ground for a relatively new rules system—or in the case of Old School Essentials, a relatively new version of an old rules system. Nor indeed are psionics new to Old School Essentials, as for example, the Planar Compass Player’s Booklet for the Planar Compass fanzine has already presented a version.

The first of the two new Classes in Scout Magazine Issue #III is the ‘Wildling Warrior’. This is a tribal warrior with a distrust of anything different who inflicts double damage when he charges in combat with a two-handed weapon, is immune to fear, can forage and hunt, and will refuse to use magical items, though he will accept the use of divine magic. He will learn to strike invulnerable monsters and gains an increasing bonus to hit when wearing no armour. His War Cry can force a Morale Check on creatures of lower Hit Dice. It is difficult to really distinguish the ‘Wildling Warrior’ from the Barbarian Class and thus understand quite what this offers.

The same initially can be said of the ‘Zealot’, effectively a holy warrior or a version of the Paladin. Here the version can be either Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic in alignment. The Lawful Zealot focuses on life-giving magic, repelling undead, and boosting their allies’ abilities on the battlefield; the Neutral Zealot on nature-related magics, interacting with animals, and shapeshifting; and the Chaotic Zealots on controlling the undead and life-draining magic. The Zealot has to use blunt weapons, is immune to disease, and each hour can call upon his deity to cast a spell. The Lawful Zealot can Lay on Hands and at Eighth Level restore life or destroy undead; the Neutral Zealot gains animal form and at Eighth Level, full lycanthropy; and the Chaotic Zealot can drain life and at Eighth Level, can animate the dead. Each type of the Zealot has its own short spell list. The Zealot is three Classes in one, with the Lawful and Chaotic versions being akin to the Paladin and Anti-Paladin with the Neutral Zealot being a Druidic version. This is an intriguing option and something really different.

‘Drow Spells’ provides a spell list for the version of the Drow in Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules. Many like Spidercloak Armour, Spider Bite, and Summon Spiders are appropriately thematic. The last quarter of Scout Magazine Issue #III is devoted to ‘Monsters’, all of which are inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos. Creatures taken from Lovecraft’s writings (and those of others in the same milieu) have a long history of appearing in Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games, going all the way back to the Deities & Demigods sourcebook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition—and indeed, this is not the first time that the Old School Renaissance has pulled a tentacle out of the Cthulhu Mythos, such as Realms of Crawling Chaos: Lovecraftian Dark Fantasy. Here the author gives stats and a little detail on Azathoth, B’yakhee, Cthugah, Cthulhu, Deep Ones, members of the Great Race, I’thaqua, Mi-Go, Nyarlathotep, Shoggoths, and many more. There are some more generic Lovecraftian creatures alongside the well-known ones. These are all serviceable enough and the author promises the reader a supplement to go with them to cover the rituals and spells too.

Physically, Scout Magazine #III is tidily presented. It is very lightly illustrated.

Scout Magazine #III provides the Game Master and her players with a mixture of options old and new—or rather retreads of old worn paths and new. There is some good content in the issue, but just a little too much feels too similar to what has gone on before. That said, these are just the author’s suggestions and if the content of the issue does feel familiar, it is at least giving the Game Master more choice. Of the new, the Zealot Class is interesting, especially the Neutral variant, and the Backgrounds can add a nice bit of detail to any Player Character.