The Other OSR: Pitcrawler

If you opened the pages of Pitcrawler and wondered if you had wandered into a ‘choose your own adventure’ path book a la the Fighting Fantasy series of solo books, then you might be forgiven for being confused about what you are holding in your hand. Once you get past it, you actually find out what Pitcrawler is and why it had to start with ‘choose your own adventure’ path book. This is because the whole ‘choose your own adventure’ path book is designed to introduce the reader to the concept of roleplaying and what a roleplaying game is, and so actually prepare the player for what Pitcrawler actually is. Which is a fantasy roleplaying game inspired by classic Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf solo adventure books, but instead of being a ‘Choose-Your-Own-Adventure’ game, it is designed to be played by two players. One is the Adventurer; the other is the Games Master. It is as simple as that, but also a lot more than that and lot less than that—and none of that is bad.

Pitcrawler is published by MacGuffin & Co., which is best known for the superlative Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I, the anthology of genuinely good systemless campaign settings and ideas. Pitcrawler is both a storytelling game and not a storytelling game, in that both player and Game Master are working together to create a story and world with the player encouraged to make suggestions, but whilst the Game Master is most definitely not competing with the player, she is making the game and world challenging for the player and his character. Pitcrawler is both a traditional fantasy roleplaying game and not a traditional fantasy roleplaying game. There is hero who will have adventures and may even go on a great quest (or just a little one), and may delve into ‘Pits’ as it calls dungeons. However, there is no given world or world lore in the Pitcrawler. It is presumed to be over-the-top grim fantasy, but one which eschews traditional ‘Old School’ elements with its traditional treatment of females and races, alignments, and its play styles. The only background element that will be consistent from one play through to another is the world has Wizards who are powerful magicians capable of changing the world around them, not always to the benefit of the inhabitants. Wizards are also very rich and their tombs are often worth plundering. Wizards are sufficiently powerful that as a group they could destroy a minor god and even face down a major one!

Pitcrawler does not just eschew traditional ‘Old School’. It goes further in describing itself as having “Progressive Lefty Values”. And to be clear, this is not a bad thing either. After all, there are plenty of roleplaying games, almost all of them under the ‘Old School’ banner which do have those traditional elements if you want them. Pitcrawler is simply a roleplaying game that offers a different perspective and greatly widens—even if only by one roleplaying game versus hundreds of traditional roleplaying games—the choice for the player who wants to play what is a self-confessed progressive fantasy roleplaying game.

A Player Character in Pitcrawler is an Adventurer. An Adventurer is not a Wizard as Wizards are evil and an Adventurer cannot perform magic (though he can use artefacts). An Adventurer has five qualities. These are Face, Feet, Fingers, Fists, and Heart. Each is rated by a die type, from a four-sided die to a twelve-sided die. The die type attached to each quality is determined randomly. He starts play with seven Hit Points, a Background, three areas of Expertise, a Companion, and some equipment. The Backgrounds, which indicate what the Adventurer did before he came a Pitcrawler, include Animal Farmer, Bookkeeper, Entertainer, Gambler, Midwife, Tax Collector, and more. Each Background provides two items of equipment and two areas of Expertise, one of which is mandatory, the other the player can choose. A third s determined randomly. The Background also provides some equipment, two other items are determined randomly, and the player choses a weapon. What is not on the character is anything akin to Intellect, Perception, and Defence. This is because the Adventurer is as intelligent as his player; instead of rolling for Perception, the player is expected to ask questions and the Game Master is expected to answer them honestly; and Pitcrawler is a player-facing roleplaying game. That is, he is the only one rolling dice whereas the Game Master will not—except for random chance or contests between NPCs.

To create an Adventurer, a player rolls for his Qualities, Background, extra Expertise, and selects a Companion. The Companion assists with particular types of tests and can perform a particular ability once per scenario. For example, the Priest can assist with tests of willpower and pass a Complicated Heart test for the Adventurer once per scenario. The player should name the Companion and explain why the Companion is accompanying the Adventurer. The process is quick and easy, which makes it good if an Adventurer dies. If he does, one of the features of Pitcrawler is legacies in which the new Adventurer is somehow related or linked to the one that died and will gain a benefit as a result.

Pallavi Iapheth
Level: 1
Face d10 Feet d12 Fingers d8 Fists d6 Heart d4
Hit Point: 7
Background: Tax Collector
Expertise: Accounting, Haggling, Gambling
Items: Book, fake jewels, measuring tape, weighing scales, pistol
Companion: Bruiser (Bob)

To have him undertake an action, the Adventurer’s player rolls an appropriate quality die and aims to equal to or higher than a Difficulty set by the Game Master. The Difficulty ranges from three or Simple to eighteen or Inconceivable. When a quality die is rolled, it can explode, which means that it is possible for the Adventurer to overcome a challenge even if the die type is low. In addition, the difficulty of the test can be lowered one step if the Adventurer has a relevant Expertise, a Useful item, or is Assisted by a Companion or NPC willing to help. A critical success, equal to double the number needed to succeed, grants the Adventurer an extra reward. Failure can lead to loss of Hit Points and/or a consequence which will send the scenario in a different direction.

If failure is likely, the Adventurer can instead ‘Put his heart Into It’ and his player roll the Heart quality die and add it to the total. If the roll is a failure, it is counted as a critical failure. One clever mechanic is that of ‘Thumbs’, which apes the keeping of the thumb on a previous page in a solo adventure book as the player explores the story on another. In effect, this allows the player to turn back the clock in the scenario to a reset point and there make a different choice. A player can have up to five Thumbs depending upon the difficulty of the play.

As with other player-facing roleplaying games, in combat, a player will be rolling to have his Adventurer avoid damage. It can be kept as simple as that, but it can be made more complex and detailed with the rules for advanced fights. These add more detail to opponents, allows for multiple opponents, range, the Adventurer or the enemy gaining the upper hand (whether through preparation, observation, or research), more detailed Companion involvement, and so on. The added complexity has its advantages in work, providing more mini-prompts with which to narrate the combat, but does slow game play down comparatively.

Beyond the simplicity of the rules, there is advice for the Game Master on easing the player into his first scenario and onto the next, as well as creating scenarios. These are effectively outlines or prompts that provide a foundation from which she can improvise from, consisting of a concept, objective, antagonist, location, complication, factions, and twists along with a hook that the Game Master can use to bait the Adventurer. The setting for Pitcrawler is described in broad detail—Wizards rule everything, dangers are everywhere and there are rewards to be won; and no thinking creature inherently evil, but that does not mean that they are necessarily good; and whilst there are a lot of gods, they are not necessarily going to be helpful. Particular attention is paid to the nature of Wizards, that they are ambitious, respect other Wizards only, are otherworldly and nerdy, and are egotistical. This is accompanied by a quick guide to creating a Wizard.

Two thirds of Pitcrawler consists of ten appendices. Some of these support Adventurer creation, but others provide lists of equipment, magic potions, and magic items to buy (the Adventurer can buy one of each of the magic potions and magic items between scenarios). The ‘Tome of Foes’ gives lots of suggested foes, ready to throw into the path of the Adventurer, whilst ‘Iconic Wizards’ describes some twenty-five different Wizards. These include An’Nimat the Dancer who is fascinated with music and sound and uses spells to make others move to the music including everyone in her domain the new moon; Bombatel the War Wizard, who resides in a cratered and battered domain, and is often hired by other Wizards to fight for them; Malsain the Rotmonger, who studies decay, disease, and entropy from her domain mired in slime and plague, and is shunned by other Wizards as a consequence; and Salvia the Chef, so enamoured of good food and the artistry of cooking, that he gave up his studies and made his mansion into a bistro, using magic to develop new ingredients, but not actually cook with. This is accompanied by ‘A Pitcrawler’s Progress’, a complete ten-part campaign, which takes the Adventurer from saving someone important to him in a fishing town that is being attacked by leviathan to delving into tombs, climbing mage towers, and more as he chases down The Sunless, a cult dedicated to awakening its dead god of darkness. Each of the parts has been opened up beyond simple prompts, but the structure does not limit the Game Master or the player in developing the world how they want in play, working from the prompts that the individual scenarios give. What is made clear is that ‘A Pitcrawler’s Progress’ is not a default setting for the roleplaying game, but something to define during play. Overall, ‘A Pitcrawler’s Progress’ provides the Game Master and player all that they need to get playing bar their creativity.

Unfortunately, there is not much in the way of pits or crawling in Pitcrawler. Despite all of its efforts to create a roleplaying game that treats a traditional roleplaying game style and concept in a non-traditional fashion, it seems odd that it does not talk about how to create and play dungeons in Pitcrawler. Given how much this is part of the traditional play that Pitcrawler is emulating, it is a major omission. The other is that for a roleplaying game that works from prompts and wants to push the imagination of both Game Master and player, it seems short of smaller, more general tables to help with that.

Physically, Pitcrawler is well presented. It is an easy read and the artwork constantly echoes the look of the Fighting Fantasy series.

Pitcrawler is different. It brings storytelling elements to Old School Renaissance play without any of its assumptions or traditions and what that means is greater flexibility in tone, style, and nature of the world that the Game Master and player will work together to create and the Adventurer will explore. Some of the elements are not as developed as they should have been, such as ‘pits’, perhaps opening up the possibility of a pit companion to this main rulebook. Ultimately, Pitcrawler opens up classic fantasy roleplaying to players and Game Master who would normally avoid it and allows them to make it their own together. The combination of a lack of assumed lore with it being a one-on-one roleplaying game also makes it easier to get a group—or pair—together and start playing.