[Fanzine Focus XLIII] The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley

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: Gods Walk the Valley is the sixth and final entry in the series. Unfortunately, it marks a return to form for the series. Unlike the fourth and fifth issues in the series before it, The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions and The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core it does not do anything 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, and the good news is that in the case of The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley, that Judge will find the issue equally as good. However, for the Judge wanting more, this sixth issue as well as the first three issues, will be 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 and The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core, the series failed to provide what might be called an adventure as promised on the back cover.

One of the things that The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley does do is address the issue of Player Character motivations. Unfortunately, in previous issues, the series has steadfastly refused to make any suggestions as to what they might be and leave the Judge to decide what they are—which in all fairness is the series’ signature design feature. Here though, they are included and they suggest that the Player Characters might have been cast through some random portal and ended up in the valley, found the valley deep into a mountain range they were exploring, or have found their way into a jungle enclave shut off from the rest of the world by some powerful entities who wanted to see how it developed free of outside influence, to protect the location of an artefact, to imprison dangerous creatures, or a mix of all four. Putting aside that it is strange to suggest these ideas so late in the series, it should be no surprise that having suggested them, the fanzine leaves it up to the Judge to develop which of them to choose and then develop.

The mainstay of this sixth and final issue of the fanzine is four, highly detailed encounters monstrous beings, the almost god-like things alluded to by the issue title. In ‘The Living Jungle’ the Player Characters are cutting their way through the jungle when it comes to life and attacks them. They must defend themselves against a Topiary-Thing and Animated Palm Trees (a variant of the Treant) lead by a Dryad whom the Player Characters have unwittingly angered in slashing their way through the jungle. Unfortunately, there is no way of resolving the situation other than with a fight. So no doing a service or task for the Dryad as restitution and therefore no opportunities for interaction or roleplaying. Worse, this is not the only encounter like this in this or previous issues of the fanzine. So, whilst the creatures might well designed and detailed, the encounter itself strikes a disappointingly singular note.

The second encounter, ‘The Summoning’ has more depth and detail, but that is because it is a bigger encounter. The Player Characters crest a hill to look down upon an enormous ziggurat at the base of which a ceremony is being enacted at the end of which it is clear that a sacrifice will be performed. This is to summon a prime ooze from beyond time and space (for Dungeon Crawl Classics) or activate a War-bot (for Mutant Crawl Classics) and with five hundred feet between them and the ziggurat, the Player Characters have time to act. The combat is broken down into a timeline that last several rounds which track what the enemy is doing. At the end of it, the Player Characters might find a great artefact, an Orb of Power (for Dungeon Crawl Classics) or Dimensional Orb (for Mutant Crawl Classics). The Orb of Power gives a statistic and spellcasting bonus, whilst the Dimensional Orb gives a bonus to the program checks and access to a patron AI. However, the possessor cannot let the artefact out of his sight, but beyond that, either artefact feels underwhelming.

In ‘Ancient Hero’ the Player Characters find a great stone slab on the side of a hill. If they can shift the slab, they find inside a tomb for a Skeletal Champion (for Dungeon Crawl Classics) or Scream Champion (for Mutant Crawl Classics). If the Player Characters can defeat this mighty monster and its companions, there is an equally mighty treasure to gained. This is The Bloody Hand, a cursed and Chaotic two-handed sword that causes those of opposed Alignment to bleed when wounded with it. However, the sword must take a life every twenty-four lest the wielder suffer actual damage or a statistic loss (the weapon is highly reminiscent of certain soul-sucking sword…). Following a rumour—which makes a nice change from just wandering into an encounter—about a flame that fell out of the sky, the Player Characters investigate which might be its crash site, the Isle of Golenmot, deep in the jungle. It turns out that the crater where it landed, now full of muck and water is actually home to a giant snapping turtle—and it is hungry. If they defeat it, the Player Characters may find the meteorite at the bottom of the lake, but other than that, the encounter is over and done with.

Beyond that, The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley presents write-ups for all of the monsters that the Player Characters will have faced in the previous four encounters in Appendix A. Then in Appendix B, ‘Resources of the Valley’ reprints details of materials used in the valley rather than metal—bone, wood, and diamond. Between them, Appendix A and Appendix B, along with the article on materials, and the empty three pages of ‘GM Notes’, make up half of the issue, and add nothing to the fanzine. The unnecessary repetition of material here could have been put to so much better use, but instead, half of the fanzine is a waste of space.

So The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley is essentially is four combat encounters. Four, big, bruising combat encounters, but nothing more, nothing less. And not one of them adds to The Valley Out of Time as a setting and not one of them an adventure as promised.

Physically, The Valley Out of Time: Gods Walk the Valley is well presented and well written. The artwork is of a reasonable quality.

As a series, The Valley Out of Time has continued to astound and astonish in the author’s steadfast refusal to explore the concept of a lost valley and the sense of a lost valley as a place, instead, presenting again and again, one combat encounter with a dinosaur or megafauna after another with nary an opportunity for roleplaying. It is as if the author found the concept of a lost valley, pointed the Judge towards it, and then lost the concept entirely, leaving the Judge to do all of the work to make it a gameable space. And that is not what a good fanzine should be doing.

In the meantime, there scope for someone to step up and write a lost valley setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics and/or Mutant Crawl Classics which has setting details, plots, motivations, NPCs, hooks, secrets, and more that the Judge can run for her players without having to do all of the heavy lifting, because The Valley Out of Time does none of that.