This is the world of Firnum, the setting for Barrows & Borderlands, which describes itself as “A Weird Science Fantasy Old-School Style Role Playing Game set in a Dark Radioactive Wasteland of Magic, Black-powder, and Dragons!” Designed and published by Matthew Tap, it consists of four books—Book 1: Men & Mutants, Book 2: Psychics & Sorcerers, Book 3: Horrors & Treasure, and Book 4: The Underworld & Borderlands—and is unashamedly ‘Old School’ in its design. It is a Class and Level roleplaying game, it uses THAC0, and its various subsystems use different mechanics, but there are some modernisms, such as spellcasting not being Vancian, that is, cast and forget, but requires a casting roll and there is a chance of miscasting. Its primary inspirations are Original Dungeons & Dragons and Metamorphosis Alpha: Fantastic Role-Playing Game of Science Fiction Adventures on a Lost Starship, but set in a near-apocalyptic (or possibly post-apocalyptic) world that draws from the seventeenth century and a lot of the illustrations from the period rather than the medievalism of Dungeons & Dragons. Thus, you have magic and the worship of gods alongside gunpowder and steel and psychic powers and mutations. There are even elements of the Mythos within its setting, though that of Robert W. Chambers rather than H.P. Lovecraft with the inclusion of Carcosan aliens and the King in Yellow and Carcosa as rumours, as well as the inclusion of Greys, or Zeta Reticulans.
Barrows & Borderlands Book 1: Men & Mutants introduces the setting and provides the means to create characters. A Player Character has seven attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, and Radiation Resist—which range in value between three and eighteen. He will have a Race which grant some inherent abilities and Class that give him his abilities. He will also have a Star Sign that will grant him a single bonus, plus one or more skills, which divided between ‘Common’, ‘Middling’, and ‘Gentry’ which suggests a Player Character’s social origins. The skills are included for roleplaying depth rather than to support a skill mechanic, but a Game Master may allow a Player Character an advantage in a situation where they are being used or simply let the Player Character know a certain fact or attempt an action. The skills, such as ‘Beggar’, ‘Watchmaker’, or ‘Philosopher’, can also be used to determine the origins and type of character that the player s roleplaying. A Player Character will have a named relative who will inherit his wares and chattels should he go missing for long enough, and an Alignment, either Lawful (good or evil), Neutral, or Chaotic (good or evil).
The nine Races include traditional Pure-Strain Humans, Halflings, and Dwarves, and are joined by Kobolds, Starborn, Greenskulls, Mutants, Mycelians, and Fairies. Kobolds, Mutants, Greenskulls, and Starborn are demi-humans altered by the radiation of the stars and dark magiks. The dog-like Kobolds are said to have been once the slaves of dragons; Starborn are the living fragments of fallen stars given flesh and form, exiles from heaven that the Church would burn; Greenskulls are undead creatures of radiation appearing as either pale green skeletons or having green translucent skin; Mutants can be Humans, Animals, or Plants and continue to mutate; Mycelians are colonies of intelligent fungi with voices like rotting leaves that trade in prophecies and poisons; and Fairies are bewinged fey tricksters that promise wishes and enchantments. The Classes are Fighting-Man, Magic-User, Cleric, Half-Caster, Thief, Gamma, and Psychic. The Half-Caster is one-part Fighting-Man, one-part Magic-User, but is not as good at fighting or spell-casting; Psychics employ psionic powers; and Gammas have mutant powers—both beneficial and detrimental, and can have more.
The list of mutations for the Gamma is not extensive in comparison to other post-apocalyptic roleplaying games and its single table includes both beneficial and detrimental mutations. So, options include ‘Radiation Eyes’, ‘Wings’, and ‘Density Shift Self’, and ‘Carrion Odour’, ‘Non-Sensory Nerve Endings’, and ‘Bulbous Skull’.
Character creation in Barrows & Borderlands is a matter of rolling three six-sided dice and recording them in order for the seven attributes (though it does allow alternative means of generating them). The player selects a Race and Class for his character, rolls for a Star Sign and number and category of skills, and then picks skills from those categories.
Name: Billy Bones Bonce
Class: Psychic Level: 1
Race: Greenskull
Birthsign: Moon (tides/cycles) (+1 Firearms damage)
Hit Points: 6
THAC0: 19
Saving Throw: 19 (+2 versus Paralysis and Sorcery)
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Strength 8 (-1 Damage)
Dexterity 10
Constitution 16 (+1 HP, +1 versus Radiation (Death) Saves)
Intelligence 18 (+8 Languages Spoken)
Wisdom 14
Charisma 09 (Maximum Number of Retainers: 4)
Radiation Resist 12
Racial Abilities
Immune to Radiation. Does not need sleep. Starts with a 2:6 chance to form a human disguise from a fresh dead body. Has Infravision at a range of 60’.
Psychic Strength: 104
Psychic Abilities
Telepathy 3 (Know Alignment, Thought Influence, Empathy)
Skills
Common: beggar, domestic servant, paper-ink maker, apprentice
Middling: printer, apothecary, schoolmaster
Gentry: astrologer, lawyer, duellist
The equipment list is surprisingly short, but includes matchlock, flintlock, and wheellock black powder firearms. All firearms have a chance of misfiring and muskets ignore five points of armour, whilst pistols only do so at close range. (Presumably, this means that the defender’s Armour Class is reduced.) Basic combat is simple enough with rolls being made to hit on a twenty-sided die, the target number determined by comparing the attacker’s THAC0 value with the Armour Class of the defender. The combat rules cover options such as charging, mounted combat, spear charges, shield walls, and more. Shield techniques allow for shield bashes and cover for allies; defensive and aggressive stances, which will alter Armour Class and a character’s ‘To Hit’ chance; blocking and parrying and dodging for defensive techniques; having a shot ready and firing on the move for archery techniques; disarming and making double-feints in melee combat; and mounted shot and pike and shot formation for firearm techniques. These are not the only options, but there is a comprehensive list of them, allowing a Player Character to do more than simply hack and slash.
Barrows & Borderlands Book 2: Psychics & Sorcerers covers magic and psionics. Spells require a free hand and the freedom to speak to cast, and mechanically, a casting roll. This is done by comparing the caster’s Level with the Level of the spell and rolling two six-sided dice. The result can be that the spell is cast immediately, its effect delayed by up to six Rounds, or a chance that a Critical Miscast occurs. This always happens if two is rolled on the dice. It is possible for a caster to cast a spell that is above his Level, but this increases a chance of a Critical Miscast. When the possibility of a Critical Miscast is indicated, the player must make a Saving Throw versus Spells. On failure, he must roll on the ‘Magic-User Critical Miscast Table’, which at its worst obliterates the caster or changes reality so that he was never born. Other results include forcing the caster to cast every spell he knows at a random target (which includes the other Player Characters), the caster’s bones disappearing, suffering a random mutation, and so on. There is a Critical Miscast Table for the Magic-User, but not the Cleric. Learning a new spell, which can be from a scroll, tome, a master, or self-created, requires a roll under the Player Character’s Prime Requisite attribute, modified by the difference between the caster’s Level and the Level of the spell. Magic-Users and Clerics can also counterspell against another caster.
The spells for both the Magic-User and the Cleric will be familiar to anyone who has played plenty of Dungeons & Dragons. Only those of Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Level for the Magic-User are new. These are powerful spells, such as Adaptive Blast which sends a blast of energy at a target adapting to the type of energy to which it is most vulnerable; Jaws of the Snake God which summons a giant, spectral snake that bites a target for one-to-one-hundred damage and ignores armour; and Dark Forest, which summons a singe square-mile of forest with trees that grow to be a hundred feet tall and a population of up to one hundred Giant Spiders, up to one hundred Evil Shadows, and up to one hundred Orcs at the caster’s command.
One of the spells does stray into poor taste. Insanity Multiplied inflicts a form of mental instability on everyone within a one-mile radius for eight hours. These include being manic depressive, paranoid, schizophrenic, sexually perverse, and violently homicidal. Times and attitudes have changed and whilst this would have no doubt have acceptable in the roleplaying games of some forty years ago, it is not the case today. This is a spell that the Game Master may want to consider leaving out of her game.
It is possible for any Player Character to a Wild Psionic, but they have fewer points to invest in disciplines and there even the chance of their suffering Psycho-desynchronization when attempting to learn a new discipline and losing points from their attributes. The Psychic Class does not suffer this. There are twelve disciplines and they include Telekinesis, Cell Adjustment, Object/Aura Reading, Mental Assault, and Living Weaponry. Each Discipline has six different effects. For example, Telepathy has the effects, from one to six in ascending order of ‘Know Alignment’, ‘Thought Influence’, ‘Empathy’, ‘ESP’, ‘Commune’, and ‘Mind Control’. Each Disciple requires two points of Investment to gain the first effect, but after that, only one point is required to gain the next effect. To use a Discipline, a Psychic’s player rolls a single six-sided die. If the result is equal to or less than the Investment level, then the Psychic can the desired effect. If a one is rolled, only the base effect can be used and the Psychic cannot use the Discipline until the next day. However, with some disciplines, it is possible to push the roll again and again, improving the effect each time until the Psychic is able to use the desired effect. For example, if a Psychic has invested in the Pyrokinesis Discipline enough to know ‘Spark of Flame’, ‘Control Fire’, and ‘Heat Metal’, his player could attempt to push the roll three times to trigger ‘Immolation’ and set the target alight!
Several of the Disciplines provide means for a Psychic to attack others, but he can also duel with another Psychic. This is essentially the equivalent of ‘Rock-Paper-Scissors’ in which the duellists each select a Defence Mode and an Attack Mode and compare the results. These can be nothing or they inflict damage to the duellist’s Psychic Strength (to the point where they are unconscious), or hopefully stun them, which means they can do nothing and are at their opponent’s mercy. Overall, the Psionics rules are simple enough and provide a mix of spell-like and other effects that can make the Psychic Class flexible and powerful.
Barrows & Borderlands Book 3: Horrors & Treasure is the bestiary for Barrows & Borderlands. It includes many, many monsters and creatures that will be recognisable from Dungeons & Dragons—Black Puddings, Cockatrices, Gargoyles, Lycanthropes, Mimics, Owl Bears, Rust Monsters, Trolls, Will O’Wisps, and Yellow Molds. These are joined by the less familiar creatures such as Ladies of the Lake who offer a divine pact sealed with the gift of a weapon, Mirror Men that ape their opponent’s equipment and fighting style, the slow, but hard hitting Robots, the Silver Men of gleaming liquid metal that shoot eye-beams, and Dynaco Employees, mutants in synthetic work-suits that follow the diktats of a secret ancient organisation. There are a lot of entries as it also includes dinosaurs, dragons, giants, and golems.
The treasure also many items that will be familiar from Dungeons & Dragons, but also devices particular to the world of Firnum. For example, Sword +1 vs. Robots and Magic Gun +2, and swords as well as guns can be intelligent. Some weapons and devices are not magical, but technological. For example, the Dynaco Anti-Material Rifle which fires rounds that ignore armour; the Ray Gun powered by a Star Shard magazine; and Lukas’ Laser Sword, an energy blade that ignores damage reduction and five points of armour. Armour is treated in a similar fashion, all the way up to Dynaco Star Armour, a suit of powered armour. Similarly, the miscellaneous items are a mixture of the familiar and unfamiliar.
Barrows & Borderlands Book 4: The Underworld & Borderlands is the Game Master’s book for Barrows & Borderlands. It suggests two main ways of playing Barrows & Borderlands and exploring the world of Firnum—The Underworld and The Borderlands. It also suggests adhering to strict timekeeping of one real-world day being equal to one game day, which has consequences on play including time management and where the Player Characters are in the setting. It also demands more of the players and the Game Master, making Barrows & Borderlands more a commitment to play. The primary advice is about preparing for either style of play, designing The Underworld and filling it with features and traps and encounters, and working from a single village location to creating a wilderness landscape and adding locations and settlements and populating them. It gives guidance on how encounters are handled, including wandering monsters, and also on building domains and aerial combat. It also includes an example of play of a party exploring an Underworld.
What Barrows & Borderlands Book 4: The Underworld & Borderlands does not do is present Firmnum as a setting or explain any of its secrets or details of the setting. This is frustrating, because right from the start, Barrows & Borderlands has been suggesting and hinting as to what it is, telling the reader about elements of the setting, but going no further. Instead, author opens Barrows & Borderlands Book 4: The Underworld & Borderlands with, “Instead of creating my own version of the Borderlands for you to explore, I find it more pertinent to give you the tools necessary to make your own.” On the one hand, this is a laudable aim. It is telling the prospective Game Master that she has all of the tools necessary to create her own campaign, but her own setting as well. It means that Barrows & Borderlands emulates those early versions of Dungeons & Dragons that presented rules for playing in a fantasy realm whose inspirations—the works of Robert E. Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien—would have been familiar to the Game Master and the player. And if that is what the Game Master and her players want, then Barrows & Borderlands provides that. On the other hand, it is disingenuous. The issue is twofold. The first issue is that Barrows & Borderlands is not upfront enough about being a toolkit and leaving it until the fourth of its rulebooks to be clear that it is, is a mistake. The second issue is that Barrows & Borderlands is not explicit in telling the reader that there is no actual setting in the roleplaying game. What the introduction states is the following:
“The Borderlands is abstract, a land of mystery to be decided by the Referee and the Players. The core concepts are set, but specific locations, adventures, and battles are up to the emergent creativity of all at the table. A sampling of histories and lores exist within this book which suggest Nations and Powers exist outside the Confines of the Borderlands.”The Borderlands—as presented in Barrows & Borderlands—are too abstract and whilst the presentation of histories and lores are suggestive of an interesting setting to come, it is a setting that the roleplaying game has no intention of delivering. Arguably, Barrows & Borderlands might actually be a better game without those histories and lores. As to the ‘core concepts’, they are very much not set. Fundamental questions such as, ‘What are the Borderlands?’, ‘What is the Dynaco Corporation?’, ‘What are Star Shards?’, ‘What are barrows in the context of the Borderlands?’, and even something as basic as, ‘What languages are spoken in and around the Borderlands?’ are left unanswered. If those elements were more sharply defined, then perhaps they would form a firmer basis upon which the Game Master and her players could build their version of the Borderlands through emergent play.
Physically, Barrows & Borderlands is presented as and looks like a roleplaying game from TSR, Inc. from the nineteen-seventies, but much cleaner, tidier, and sharper. The artwork, much of it drawn from the public domain, is not bad and together, the whole effect just says that this is an Old School Renaissance roleplaying game. In general—especially when it comes the rules, the roleplaying game is clearly written. However, elsewhere the writing is more opaque.
Despite its omissions, Barrows & Borderlands is very likeable roleplaying game. It has all the rules necessary to run a post-apocalyptic weird science fantasy campaign, and yet… whilst it describes itself as “A Weird Science Fantasy Old-School Style Role Playing Game set in a Dark Radioactive Wasteland of Magic, Black-powder, and Dragons!” and there can be no doubt that it delivers on being “A Weird Science Fantasy Old-School Style Role Playing Game… of Magic, Black-powder, and Dragons!”, what it fails to do is give the Game Master and her players the promised “…Dark Radioactive Wasteland…” Barrows & Borderlands is either a toolkit which hints unnecessarily at a setting or a desperately underdeveloped setting attached to a decent set of rules. Barrows & Borderlands really needs to be one or the other, rather than both. Or Barrows & Borderlands really, really needs Book 5: The Borderlands to give the Game Master and her players a starting point.
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