Screams on Screen

They say that if you want to make it big in Hollywood, you are going to have to sell your soul. Not necessarily the devil, but to some studio executive for certain. Life is hard trying to make it big in Tinseltown, but that does not stop a whole lot of people trying—and when they get there, from working just as hard to stay on top, or as close as they can get. Fame and fortune, and your name up in lights on the marquee at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard beckon if you work hard enough, have got the talent, and get lucky. Right now, you got some of that and more—a contract. A contract with Starfall Studios, where, “The Brightest Stars are brought down to earth, just for you!”. In truth, you are a B-List actor, perhaps on the way up, perhaps on the way down, and also in truth, Starfall Studios has not had a hit in years. However, you know you can change that, because you know you are good and with the new management and the new funding, this could be your chance to get noticed. If not make a big hit, then big enough to maybe get an award nomination, get picked up by a bigger studio, and get put in bigger pictures.

This is the set-up for SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, a cinema-themed campaign for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, the horror roleplaying game published by Parable Games. In the campaign, the players take on the roles of actors working for a small film studio in Hollywood, trying to make some blockbusters and get noticed. It has five scripts, each bound to be a surefire hit in which the actors get to prove how good—or bad—they are and make Hollywood sit up and take notice! Effectively, each player is roleplaying an actor who is playing a role in five different films, so five times—and slightly more—the roleplaying as in any other campaign or roleplaying game, unless they always play the same role and play it to the camera. Then, the best thing of all, a roleplaying game like Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown and thus SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, has got a budget bigger than any Hollywood studio. So, it can make any film and it will never blow the budget!

Actor creation in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream works like that in Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. First, a player selects an Archetype, a Background, and a Fear. Then for SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, he selects a Starring Role. This can be ‘The Leading Hero’, ‘The Stunt Performer’, ‘The Thespian’, ‘The Heartthrob’, ‘The Love Interest’, ‘The Comic Relief’, ‘The Method’, and more. Each Starring Role has a Star Power and Audience Expectation. The Star Power is a unique ability that the Actor can perform once per quarter of the Doom Clock, whilst the Audience Expectation is something that if done on screen will gain the Actor the favour of both the audience and the Director, and so boost his career. So, for ‘The Love Interest’, the Star Power is a ‘A Healing Heart’ that enables the Actor to make a Heart Check and regain Hit Points if they perform a romantic scene, whilst the Audience Expectation ‘Break Heart/Bow Minds’ in which the Actor wants the audience’s favour to fall in love with them and so will make romantic confessions, and have moments of passion or tear-jerking moments to get the audience to love them.

Depending upon how well an Actor performed, he or she can receive an Accolade or a Review. Both are awarded by the Director. Engage in both Star Power and Audience Expectation and an Actor will earn an Accolade, but if not, he or she may be in line for a Bad Review. Accolades include the ‘Performance Award’, ‘Hall of Fame’, ‘Rabid Fanbase’, ‘Top Billing’, and so on, whilst Bad Reviews include ‘Hamming It Up’, ‘Worst Actor Ever’, and ‘Boring Performance’. Accolades provide a minor benefit, whilst Bad Reviews act as minor disadvantage. For example, ‘Performance Award’ gives the Actor a piece of armour to use in the next film, but once used, it is gone, whilst ‘Looking Fit’ grants Advantage on acts of athleticism. The Bad Review, ‘Diva Reputation’ means that if the Actor fails a Check that would advance the Doom Clock, if they also fail a Strange Check, they suffer Soul damage.

It is possible for a player to change his Actor’s Starring Role and the book suggests that if multiple players want their Actor to take a particular Starring Role, then they should audition! However, the awarding of Accolades and Bad Reviews is the purview of the Director and can be subjective. The problem is that they are effectively grading a player’s roleplaying skill and performance—good, bad, or indifferent—and that is not natural to roleplaying as a hobby. The advice on the matter is cursory, but nevertheless, this is a fun mechanic and enforces the film studio and life in pictures set-up of SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream. What the Director might want to do perhaps is encourage the input of the players in deciding the Accolades and Bad Reviews, possibly forming an association of Hollywood critics and roleplaying its members too to expand the roles that the players take?

Once set up, SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream presents five very different ‘scripts’ or scenarios. Each is very nicely formatted, including a set-up, a Classification Board, details of what the Director knows, enemies, weapons, and items, the epilogue, and the Doom Events. The Doom Events are the four events per scenario that can be triggered over the course of the script, whilst the Classification Board categorises the scenario. Actually the ‘SHIVER Board of Classification’, for each scenario it lists the length of play time, number of players required, Subgenre, Film Age Rating, Content Warning, Recommended Ability Level, and Watchlist. The latter includes the archetypal films that the script references and that the Director should watch for inspiration. Every film lists the roles required as well.

All five adventures in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream can be played through in a single session, or two at the most. The first is ‘A Little Adventure’, which is inspired by Honey I Shrunk the Kids and The Incredible Shrinking Man and finds a family visiting Grandpa for the weekend only to find him missing and themselves suddenly shrunk into a big world where they must battle toys, pets, and insects from doll’s house across the garden to find a way to get back to the right scale. ‘Crossbones’ Treasure’ is inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean and The Goonies, and is a classic pirate tale that has the cast race across the Caribbean in search of pirate treasure and facing ghosts, undead, and a giant crab. The third scenario is ‘Intergalactic Planetary Temple of Terror’ is a Science Fiction film which is in parts Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars, and Flash Gordon. The Player Characters are galactic criminals who escape space prison and are chased by their robot masters known as the Authority all the way to an ice planet where they will be faced by a dilemma whose outcome will affect the universe! A combination of Lord of the Rings, Legend, and Clash of the Titans*, ‘Medieval Dead’ is a fantasy romp in which the Player Characters are would be heroes, apprentice members of the Adventurer’s Guild, who are forced to suddenly graduate to actual, proper heroes when at the annual Merry Heroism Festival, an army of skeletons and a skeletal dragon, led by the Necromancer kills them all. Plus, he also kidnaps the princess. So not only a revenge mission, but a rescue one too which pokes a little fun at Dungeons & Dragons too, all the way to Mount Gloom. The last scenario is ‘Deep Red Sea’ which is inspired by the Indiana Jones series of films, Jaws, and Atlantis: The Lost City. What starts as a shark hunt to improve the tourism of a Pacific coast town in 1941 turns into a confrontation with a big sea monster and an evil cult from under the sea!

* Hopefully the original and not the dire 2010 remake.

Now all five of the scenarios in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream are linear. This is to be expected, as after all, they are meant to be films being shot by a film studio. They could also be extracted from the book and run as one-shots, but that would be to ignore the meta-level written into the campaign, that is, the fact that the Player Characters are Actors. Where the players get to roleplay Actors in five different films over the course of SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, in between, they get to play the Actors themselves. Between each film there is an interlude. Starfall Studio is running a very busy schedule, so the Actors will have little time between wrapping up shooting on one picture and shooting the next, so will be confined to the Star Trailer Park. In the first interlude, between ‘A Little Adventure’ and ‘Crossbones’ Treasure’, the players get to introduce their Actors and what their Starring Role is and each is visited by their Agent for the dreaded Performance Review. This is when the Accolades and Bad Reviews are handed out. One odd issue perhaps is that the Actors all share the same Agent, but that does also suggest a certain creepiness to their situation and this is only enhanced by the ominous events which can occur to one or more of the Actors. These ominous events are inspired by the previous films which the Actors have just finished making and serve to add to the creepiness as more and more of them occur as more films are made. One option to offset the oddness of the single Agent, is to have the players roleplay the different Agents for their Actors, which will add another level of roleplay to the campaign and make it a little more like troupe play.

Over the course of the four interludes, life at the Starfall Studio lot gets more and more mysterious, like the scriptwriter on all five films going missing or a rabid fan running amok, until ‘The Last Reel’. Drawing inspiration from This is the End and Scream 2, in this campaign climax, the Actors are forced to step out of their heroic roles and become heroes themselves as they attend the Star Gala at Starfall Studios’ Ciné Star Megaplex and confront one big conspiracy and one big villain, who has been pulling the strings all along, proving, of course, just how evil Hollywood actually is!

Supporting the campaign in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream is ‘The Compendium’. This lists all of the NPCs and monsters which appear in the various films, plus the Inventory for each.

SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream is not just a collection of film-themed and film inspired horror adventures. It is more than that and in part, that is where the campaign comes alive, in having the players not only roleplay the cast of characters onscreen in the campaign’s five films, but also step back from that to have them roleplay the Actors performing as the cast of characters. It calls for more roleplaying upon the part of the players, which can be as hammy as they like, because, after all, the Starring Roles are archetypes. And if they want to be inspired by particular actors who resemble those Starring Roles, then all the better.

SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream is a really entertaining campaign that in presenting five films to make, offers lots of variety, and having the players roleplay both the film casts and the Actors, gives them lots of roleplay to get their teeth into—a clever, well-executed combination.

The Other OSR: Bridgetown

In between the Infinite Sky above and the fog-bound depths of the Under below, the Bridge goes ever on. Towns sprawl upwards into dense conurbations of towers as if to touch the Infinite Sky, whilst the narrow sewers and undercities thread in and out of between the Bridge’s great stone piles. Were one to descend below, you might discover labyrinths and hidden facilities, and deeper still, horrors and strangeness beyond the understanding of any Bridger, each fascinated by the Bridgers brave—or foolish—enough to descend so far. Some Spans of the Bridge are busy towns. Some the gated estates of the aristocracy. Some are broken—by accident or by too much theft of the Bridge’s stone and metal, the only source of either, for the Bridgers. Some have buildings upon which there are rooftop gardens—the only source of food for the Bridgers. Some have gone to seed and overgrown into wildernesses, as much as the cobbles of the Bridge will allow. There is said to be a Span on the Bridge where it is perpetual night and another where the Span revolves slowly to connect with the rest of the Bridge once a day. It is also said that the Bridge is alive and some can hear its whispers if they listen carefully enough. In between every Span, stands a Gatehouse. Most are operated by the Turnpike Guild, taking travellers money in return for supposedly safe passage, though most regard the supposedly protective guild members as nothing more than extortionists. From the Awful Birds in the Infinite Sky and the Gargoyles lurking seemingly everywhere, everything is hungry and resources are far from plentiful, and occasionally, something strange will happen on the Bridge, though no one will say what. As the Bridge crumbles underfoot, there are those who look beyond their Span, ready to go in search of… something. The Bridgers are at peace now, thanks to the mythical pact between the Trolls and Gruffolk and Humans and Coblins, so now is as good a time as any for a Bridge-Punk to go look for it, somewhere along Bridgetown.

Bridgetown describes itself as a pastoral, liminal roleplaying game. Liminal certainly, as it is always set somewhere in between along the infinite length of the Bridge. Pastoral? Perhaps, but then only so far as the cobbles of the Bridge allows. Published by Technical Grimoire Games, best known for Bones Deep, it uses the TROIKA!, published by the Melsonian Arts Council, this is a roleplaying game of picaresque adventure and exploration along a weird and winding bridge that never seems to end. It is possible for the players to select backgrounds from the core rules for TROIKA!, but Bridgetown has a dozen of its own that all help enforce the feel of the sitting. These are Coblins, Gruffolk, Humans, and Trolls. The Humans include the Cobble Canter, charlatans who beg and spread the word of new gods and ideas like the Unrequited Moon and the Bleeding Stone; the Fallen Aristocrat who has literally fallen out of his tower and been scored by his fellows; the Pebble-Pincher, the homeless of the Bridgetown, who cheerfully avoids the authorities and might be connected to the mysterious Bindlestick Syndicate; the Stonewright, who can shepherd the spirits of the dead into protective keystones and talk to them; and the Turnpike Turncoat, a member who has been turfed out of the Turnpike Guild. Coblins are tiny folk, who typically travel in very large groups, forced out of their homes following the pact that ended their enslavement, finding homes where they can squeeze into. Coblin Cranny-Crawlers travel more openly, whilst Coblins in a Trench Coat disguise themselves in human-sized clothes. Gruffolk are nomadic goat-folk, travelling in braying groups called trips. The Gruffolk Hostler is on an endless quest to feed his Gruffolk travellers, whilst the Gruffolk Pilgrim searches for the perfect destination, the Fat Pastures, the Gruffolk afterlife, with a zeal, but enjoy a good fight along the way. The Troll Sewer Worker maintains and protects the sewers in the Underbridge, and as a member of the Sewer Union, seeks to unionise other works and stand up against the Turnpike Guild, whilst the Troll Shaman, or ‘Croaker’, who sacrifices part of his own stony hide to cast various spells and cures. Lastly, the Stone Keening is a Troll-sized agglomeration of human souls not syphoned into a keystone by a Stonewright, who have animated a pile of rubble and are mostly looking to avoid getting turned into a pile of gravel by a braying mob or for a quiet place to grow moss.

Bridger creation in Bridgetown follows the same process as TROIKA! begins with character creation. A Bridger is defined by his Skill, Stamina, and Luck. A player rolls for each of these, notes his possessions, and then rolls for his Background. Each Background provides several Advanced Skills, which can be actual skills or they can be spells. The process is quick and easy, and also includes an objective or three that each Background might pursue.

Name: Cumil
Background: Troll Sewer Worker
Skill 4
Stamina 18
Luck 6

ADVANCED SKILLS
Sanitation 7, Swim 3, Awareness 6, Tunnel Fighting 6

SPECIAL
See well in dark tunnels and cloudy water
Inoculated against waterborne diseases

POSSESSIONS
Knife, rucksack, lantern, flask of oil, a grimy shovel, miniature trollhole cover (Sewer Union Badge of Membership), slimeproof ratskin cap, snapstipe mushrooms (three provisions)

LOOK’N FOR
Workers to unionise
A place in need of infrastructure
A real breath of fresh air

Bridgetown is described in twelve locations, such as The Heights (and Depths); Craterton with its massive rock that fell from the Infinite Sky; the Squeeze, which is so densely populated that a single path runs through it; the Great Excavation where the inhabitants have dug down so deep into the Bridge, that Bridgers have to climb down deep into the excavated pylon and climb back out again; and Sourstone, which is not home to the Fabled Candy Cobbled Streets where every stone is a treat, but something much worse… If this does not sound that all that many, they are not necessarily one and done locations. All have tables of events and NPCs, so that the Bridgers can visit certain locations again and again, like The Heights (and Depths) and The Wyld Bridge, which are given over to lengths of wilderness.

Between the spans the Gatehouses, massive blocks of stone manned by the various Turnpike Guilds who always charge extra, or special, for ne’er do wells like the Player Characters. The description of each Gatehouse includes the toll that the Bridgers will have to pay to pass. So, The Armistice Gate has a powerful keystone that enforces a ban against the use of all weapons, so the Turnpike Guildsmen have become expert martial artists and brawlers with a penchant for delivering impromptu sermons! To pass through the Gate, the Toll the Bridgers will need to pay is not monetary, but the gruelling ‘Embrace of Peace’ initiation rite and give up their arms and armour. Locations within the Gate include The Hall of Arms where the confiscated arms and armour—some of them actually a rare source of metal on the Bridge—are displayed and stored and The Path of Peace, the temple-point of crossing where travellers cross from one span to the next.

Essentially, every Span and Gate is an encounter all of its own, each unique in their own way and rife with flavour and small details that bring them to life. They can be played in order as written—and Bridgetown includes a full-colour map that both depicts all of the Spans and Gates and allows the Game Master to do that or alternatively, randomise their order. Bridgetown comes with a way to push the Bridgers along in addition to their individual motivations. This is the campaign starter, ‘Stone Soup’, in which the Bridgers come into possession of the Cauldron, a big iron pot with a smiling face in which can be cooked magical stews! Known recipes are few and ingredients rare, but start with a handful of provisions. Possible stews can be boring, fancy, or tainted, and have odd effects such as a fertile stew that makes anything planted in it grow to fruition in a day, turns into a blade that shatters are dealing maximum damage, or makes anyone eating it grow hungrier and hungrier until he finds what he is looking for. The Fertile Stew requires fresh and magical ingredients, the Bladed Stew needs sharp and old ingredients, and the Curiosity Stew wants dull and secret ingredients. In possession of the Cauldron, the Bridgers might be searching for the cure to a horrible disease, for the Perfect Stew that might be the best means of exchange to pass through the many Gates, and so on. The more immediate driver will be the search for more ingredients and recipes, and Bridgetown has lots of information about ingredients and recipes.

Of course, in addition the Game Master can create her Spans and Gates—in fact, a book of reader submitted Gates and Spans would be an excellent companion volume—and she can add her own dungeons to the Under below the Bridge or even insert a ready-to-play one! In addition to the events and NPC tables to be found in most of the Span locations, Bridgetown includes spells linked to the Bridge which require the caster to be touching the Bridge directly and to possess a Spell-Stone. Every Spell-Stone has its own Stamina, which is expended when a spell is cast and crumbles to dust when all of the Stamina is expended. However, overuse of magic in an area causes a Span to weaken and also begin to crumble… Spells include Word on the Street when the caster literally asks the street underfoot what has happened there recently or Stonewall to create a physical wall to slow pursuers or a metaphysical wall to cause obtuse instructions in getting answers! There are further random tables for ‘Weird Weather’, more ‘Bridgetown NPCs or Creatures’, the effects of ‘Magical Spells Run Amok’, ‘Items and Loot’, ‘Awful Birds’, and more.

Physically, Bridgetown is cleanly laid out and accessible. It is clearly designed to be used at the table. The artwork is a mix of the twee and the odd and the doleful, a delightful combination.

As befitting a setting for TROIKA!, there is a weirdness and whimsiness to Bridgetown. In terms of scope, it is designed for short campaigns that would likely take the Bridgers across many of the Spans and through several of the Gates described in its pages, in addition to whatever the Game Master devised of her own. In terms of character, Bridgetown offers some wonderfully engaging choices, but the real character is the Bridge itself, a combination of the original London Bridge and Castle Gormenghast that looms over the Bridgers in their Dickensian flânerie as they in turn trudge and cavort from one Span to the next.

Quick-Start Saturday: Space: 1999

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

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

—oOo—

What is it?
The Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide is the quick-start for Space: 1999 – The Roleplaying Game the post-disaster Science Fiction roleplaying game based on the British television series Space: 1999 which ran for two seasons between 1975 and 1977. Created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, famous for their Supermarionation television series such as Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, Space: 1999 is a live action series which told the story of the men and women of Moonbase Alpha. Just as mankind was set to launch a manned probe to investigate a signal from deep space, disaster struck and the Moon was blasted out of Earth’s orbit and hurled into deep space. The series told of the encounters and challenges that the personnel of Moonbase Alpha would face as they were thrust into the cosmos. It includes a basic explanation of the setting, rules for action and combat, setting rules, the adventure, ‘Breakaway’, and six ready-to-play, Player Characters.

It is a fifty-one-page, 23.94 MB full colour PDF.

It needs a slight edit in places.

The quick-start is decently illustrated with a mix of stills from the television series and excellent artwork. (The reader should be warned that the colour palette matches that of the television series, and since it was made in the seventies, this involves a lot of orange and tan, though no avocado.)* The rules are clearly explained and are a less mechanically detailed version of the 2d20 System.

* No bathrooms appear in the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide so there is no way to be certain.

How long will it take to play?
The Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide and its adventure, ‘Breakaway’, is designed to be played through in one session, two at most.

What else do you need to play?
The Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide requires at least two twenty-sided dice per player and two sets of different coloured tokens, one to represent Momentum, one to represent Threat.

Who do you play?
The six Player Characters in the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide consist of a a Team Commander, an Operations Officer with a penchant for a ‘Nice Cup of Tea’, a Security Officer, a quiet and dedicated pilot, a hard-working Scientist, and a Doctor with experience of working on frontiers.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character in the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide—and thus the Space: 1999 – The Roleplaying Game—will look familiar to anyone who has played a 2d20 System roleplaying game. A Player Character has six Skills and six Attitudes. The six Skills are Command, Flight, Medicine, Science, security, and Technical. These also cover Charm, Athletics, Cool, Education, Strength and Perception, and Practical Intelligence and Dexterity. The six Attitudes are Bravery, Compassion, Dedication, Improvisation, Mystery, and Perseverance. Both skills and attitudes are rated between four and eight.

A Player Character will also have several focuses, plus Traits, Assets, and possibly, Complications. Focues, such as Charm, Observe, Stealth, Space Pilot, Dance, and Virology, grant grant an advantage in skill tests. Traits are describe aspects about the Player Character (and sometimes the environment); Assets are equipment or other items that can help a Player Character in a situation; and Complications are negative factors, such as the environment or an injury, that can hinder him. Lastly, a Player Character will have a Signature Asset, personal to him, that can be used once per session to gain Momentum.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide—and thus Space: 1999 – The Roleplaying Game—uses the 2d20 System seen in many of the roleplaying games published by Modiphius Entertainment, such as Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 or Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. To undertake an action in the 2d20 System in Space: 1999 – The Roleplaying Game, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of a Skill and an Attitude. Each roll under this total counts as a success, an average task requiring two successes, the aim being to generate a number of successes equal to, or greater, than the Difficulty Value. Rolls of one count as a critical success and create two successes, as does rolling under the value of the Skill when a Focus is involved. A roll of twenty adds a complication to the situation. Successes generated beyond the Difficulty value generate Momentum.

Momentum is a shared resource. It can be used to purchase extra twenty-sided dice to roll for an action, to create or remove a Trait, create an Asset, and to obtain information. The Player Characters have a maximum Momentum of six. If a Player Character has access to no Momentum, he can instead give the Game Master Threat to gain the same options as spending Momentum. Threat can also be generated in return for a Player Character ignoring a Complication, causing Escalation in a situation, being in Threatening Circumstances, and also for the Game Master rolling extra successes for an NPC. The Game Master can spend Threat to purchase extra twenty-sided dice for her to roll for an NPC, to increase the Difficulty of a skill test, to create or remove a Trait, create an Asset, to ignore a Complication affecting an NPC, and to trigger Environmental or Narrative Effects.

In addition to access to Momentum, a Player Character has his own resources to fall back on. One is Spirit, which is used to resist a defeat, to turn the result of one die into a ‘one’ or critical before the roll or reroll several dice after a roll. If a Player Character has no Spirit, he must rest, unable to do anything until he does and recovers some Spirit.

How does combat work?
Combat in the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide is kept simple with a narrative outcome rather than than a mechanical one. A player declares what he wants his character to do, for example firing stun gun to stop a charging alien or persuading a crazed scientist not to open an airlock door and vent everyone into space. A typical Difficulty is two Successes. If the skill check generates enough Successes, the defendant has two choices. One is to accept defeat, the other is to expend Spirit in order to ignore the defeat.

What do you play?

‘Breakaway’ is set on the very day that the Moon is blown out of Earth’s orbit and into deep space. It enables the players and their characters to play out the events of the first episode of the television series and so set them up for the adventures to come made possible by the publication of Space: 1999 – The Roleplaying Game. When disaster strikes and the first explosions occur at the nuclear waste silos, the Player Characters are assigned to a survey Eagle and handle communications for the other Eagle crews assigned to move the canisters of nuclear waste before there is another exposition and the magnetic radiation grows too high. After their Eagle is forced to crash land, the Player Characters must make their way back to Moonbase Alpha where they find turmoil and uncertainty, panicking crewmen, and worse...

Is there anything missing?
No. The Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide includes everything that the Game Master and six players need to play through it.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide are relatively easy to prepare. A Game Master who already run a 2d20 System roleplaying game will have no problem with this.

Is it worth it?
Yes, with minor caveats. The scenario, ‘Breakaway’, does follow the plot of the opening episode of the television series and will feel familiar t0 fans of Space: 1999. Also, Space: 1999 is not a well-known television series, being almost as old as Dungeons & Dragons! This has the benefit of the plot to ‘Breakaway’ not going to familiar to everyone, but the disadvantage of being seen as old and obscure by some. Nevertheless, the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide showcases the setting and the rules in a solid session of Science Fiction survival

Where can you get it?
The Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide is available to download here (Coming Soon).

Friday Fantasy: The Rats of Ilthmar

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the tenth scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, grimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. Scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set are set in and around the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar, the home to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the creation of author Fritz Leiber. The city is described as an urban jungle, rife with cutpurses and corruption, guilds and graft, temples and trouble, whores and wonders, and more. Under the cover the frequent fogs and smogs, the streets of the city are home to thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night! Which includes the Player Characters. And it is these roles which the Player Characters get to be in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar, small time crooks trying to make a living and a name for themselves, but without attracting the attention of either the city constabulary or worse, the Thieves’ Guild!

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar is a scenario for Third Level Player Characters and is slightly shorter and slightly different scenario to others released for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Not in terms of what the Player Characters have do, which is perform a robbery, but in terms of who the robbery is being performed for and where it is being performed. The who is the Overlord, the ruler of the City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes, and somehow, the Player Characters have fallen foul of the law, or at least the authorities, because either is very likely, or somehow come to his attention. Thus, the where, which is the city, the notoriously dirty, trash-ridden city of Ilthmar. This lies to the east of Lankhmar, on the coast of the Sea of the East. Then the why. Ilthmar is home to the cult of the Rat God, a cult barely tolerated in Lankhmar. The Overlord recently learned that the cult of the Rat God has recovered a holy relic, the Hand of St. Heveskin, and worse, instends to have it smuggled into Lankhmar where doubtless it will attract untold numbers of rats which will get into the city’s grain stores, leading to likely food shortages and possible famine and unrest. Fortunately, Lankhmar is home to some of the greatest cut-throats, sorcerers, and alley-fighters, not to save thieves, in all of Newhon. Of course, since neither Fafhrd or the Gray Mouser are available, the Player Characters will have to do. As the scenario opens, they find themselves in alley close to the Temple of the Rat on Ilthmar Harbour, observing a number of barefoot worshippers dressed in rat hair robes and carrying slender whips, followed by priests naked except for the rat masks they wear and the bigger whips they carry. This is definitely not a scenario for anyone who suffers from musophobia!

From this set-up, it is entirely up to the Player Characters how they proceed. They can climb over the walls, they can waylay some of the worshippers and attempt to mingle with them in what is an important ceremony, and so on. They only have tonight as today is the Day of the Rat and tomorrow the artefact is going to be shipped out to cultists in Lankhmar. Of course, because the priests and worshippers are attending the ceremony, the rest of the temple is going to be quiet—perfect for a bunch of ne’er-do-wells to sneak in, grab the reliquary, plus what treasure they can fill their pockets with, and sneak out again. And if they are successful, have the Overlord owe them a favour when they get home!

What follows from this great set-up, is a solid enough dungeon for the Player Characters to explore and plunder, although this time, they will be mostly sneaking their way through its various rooms and corridors. The various locations only number twenty, split between above and below ground, and are all nicely detailed. Never once does the reader and thus players when it is run, not get the feeling that the characters are in a grubby, rat-infested, and rat-themed temple. Signs of the Rat God are everywhere, including manipulation of some worshippers to be more rat-like. They include berserkers partially altered altered through ghastly surgery and worse to believe they are rats and a very nasty Catacomb Guardian, a ghost of what appears to be a tortured priest of the Rat God with the chittering heads of rats sown into his eyes and mouth, that still protects the catacombs. There is a random chance that he will appear, but if he does, he is a very difficult monster to defeat. There are several traps too, to catch the unwary, and the final encounter has a nice sense of energy to it, although a very agile Player Character may be able to get past it. Throughout, there are suggestions adjusting the threats and challenges for a smaller party of Player Characters.

The adventure is concluded with details of how the Player Characters might escape from the temple and what form their possible rewards might take if they return to Lankhmar with the Hand of St. Heveskin. Full details of the Hand of St. Heveskin are provided in the scenario’s first appendix. All together, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar is a short adventure that should take no longer than a session to complete and the criminal nature of the Player Characters means that it is easy to set-up and inset into a campaign using the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Interestingly, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar began life as a special adventure for the winners of the Lankhmar Trivia Contest held in 2015 and then played at Gen Con 2015. Which means that it actually predates the release of Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set by two years! All ten questions from that trivia contest are included in the scenario’s second appendix, along with their answers.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar is well presented. The artwork is good, having a suitably rattish, grubby feel to it. The cartography is rather plain, if workable.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar is a scenario with a great set-up and potentially great rewards for the Player Characters. In between, it is solidly themed heist which the players can enjoy without having to win a trivia contest.

Screen Shot XIV

How do you like your GM Screen?

The GM Screen is a essentially a reference sheet, comprised of several card sheets that fold out and can be stood up to serve another purpose, that is, to hide the GM's notes and dice rolls. On the inside, the side facing the GM are listed all of the tables that the GM might want or need at a glance without the need to have to leaf quickly through the core rulebook. On the outside, facing the players, can be found either more tables for their benefit or representative artwork for the game itself. This is both the basic function and the basic format of the screen, neither of which has changed all that much over the years. Beyond the basic format, much has changed though.

To begin with the general format has split, between portrait and landscape formats. The result of the landscape format is a lower screen, and if not a sturdier screen, than at least one that is less prone to being knocked over. Another change has been in the weight of card used to construct the screen. Exile Studios pioneered a new sturdier and durable screen when its printers took two covers from the Hollow Earth Expedition core rule book and literally turned them into the game’s screen. This marked a change from the earlier and flimsier screens that had been done in too light a cardstock, and several publishers have followed suit.

Once you have decided upon your screen format, the next question is what you have put with it. Do you include a poster or poster map, such as Chaosium, Inc.’s last screen for Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition or Margaret Weis Productions’ Serenity and BattleStar Galactica Roleplaying Games? Or a reference work like that included with Chessex Games’ Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune or the GM Resource Book for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu? Perhaps scenarios such as ‘Blackwater Creek’ and ‘Missed Dues’ from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition? Or even better, a book of background and scenarios as well as the screen, maps, and forms, like that of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack also published by Chaosium, Inc. In the past, the heavier and sturdier the screen, the more likely it is that the screen will be sold unaccompanied, such as those published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment for the Starblazer Adventures: The Rock & Roll Space Opera Adventure Game and Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. That though is no longer the case and stronger and sturdier GM Screens are the norm today.

So how do I like my GM Screen?

I like my Screen to come with something. Not a poster or poster map, but a scenario, which is one reason why I like ‘Descent into Darkness’ from the Game Master’s Screen and Adventure for Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition and ‘A Bann Too Many’, the scenario that comes in the Dragon Age Game Master's Kit for Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. I also like my screen to come with some reference material, something that adds to the game. Which is why I am fond of both the Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune as well as the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It is also why I like the The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment for use with The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition, the roleplaying game based on the world’s longest Science Fiction and adventure series made by the BBC.

The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen comes with a three-panel screen and a ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ for use with Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition. The three-panel screen is in landscape format and boasts a handsome collage on the front, player-facing side of the screen, the eight—bar the most recent Doctor, the Fifteenth Doctor—most recent Doctors, including the last of Doctor of Classic Who, the Eighth Doctor, last to appear in The Night of the Doctor, and also the War Doctor and the Fugitive Doctor, all bookended by flying Daleks! On the back, or inside of the screen there are various tables taken for the rules to help the Game Master run her game. The left-hand panel covers journeys and adventures with ‘Adventures on the Fly!’ enabling the Game Master to create encounters on the go, whilst the ‘Random Journeys’, ‘Vortex Hazards’, and ‘System Damage’ tables all throw the Player Characters—the Time Lord and his Companions—into the dangers of travelling the Vortex through time. At the top of the middle panel is the ‘Chase Tracker’, for which the Game Master will need to provide some clips to keep track of where the chased the chasers are relatively to each other, plus the ‘Difficulty Levels’ and ‘Success Levels’ tables for handling skills. This is the right place to have them as they probably going to be the most used tables in the game. There are also tables for ‘Improving Your Character’ and ‘Technology Levels’. The right-hand panel is devoted to combat, including the ‘Weapon Damage Table’, ‘Where Does It Hurt?’, ‘Armour’, ‘Cover’, and also ‘Conditions’. Necessary, of course, but also to some extent not as important, as The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition is very much a roleplaying game—as in the television series it is based upon—in which violence is always the last answer to any situation.

To be fair, Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition is not a mechanically complex game and tends to be fast-playing and light in its play. So, in some ways, not all of the tables on The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen are going to be useful, or at least, constantly useful. Certainly, the ‘Improving Your Character’ is not going to be used very often, and similarly, the combat tables on the right-hand panel are not going to be used regularly. This does not mean that they are not useful tables, but rather that they useful to have when the Game master needs them, rather than needing them all of the time. However, one issue is that the none of the tables have page references to their relevant rules and use in the core rulebook. This is an annoying omission. Otherwise, a solid, sturdy screen with all of the tables that the Game Master is going to need.

The ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ is a short three-guide to being a Gamemaster for Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition. It opens with ‘What Makes a Doctor Who adventure?’. This is a guide to creating adventures and examining the elements typical to a Doctor Who adventure. This includes their episodic nature, the variety of genres from light-hearted romps to dark horror stories and much in between, iconic monsters, and so on. Some of the fundamentals of a Doctor Who episode includes a sense of wonder at the universe, confusion and understanding upon arrival in the TARDIS at any location, multiple factions, the looming threat, and more. It is a solid overview, though ripe for expansion on any one of its various pointers were Cubicle 7 Entertainment to publish a companion volume for the Game Master.

What ‘What Makes a Doctor Who adventure?’ does nicely complement is the ‘Random Adventure Generator’ that follows, which would also work well with the content and tables to be found in Doctor Who: Adventures in Space. Essentially, the set of tables here are designed to inspire the Game Master or help her create a setting, a threat and plot, and an adversary. Beginning with the ‘Setting Table’, the Game Master determines if the adventure is set on Earth, in Space, both, or somewhere special. Subsequent tables expand on each of these options, whilst the ‘Threat/Plot Table’ suggests themes such as Invasion, Societal Disaster, and Caper. The ‘Old Adversary Table’ lists lots of classics, such as Cybermen, Daleks, Sea Devils, Weeping Angels, and more, whilst the there is a set of tables for creating new aliens. It is all very useful and the Game Master can quickly create lots of adventure ideas and elements that she can thread together into something that she can run for her group.

‘Adventure Hooks’ includes four fun adventure hooks, the first of which, ‘Swine and the Rani’, is not only a great play on words, but also developed from the example worked through at the end of the ‘Random Adventure Generator’. The Rani is a fun villainess and here she is in the Classical Greek era up to no good. It opens with the Player Characters landing on a Greek ship in a storm and getting shipwrecked on an island guarded by pig-faced men who serve the Rani in her classical Greek temple which happens to be bigger on the inside. If ‘Swine and the Rani’ feels a little like H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, then ‘Capture and Release’ feels a bit like The Time Machine with the Eloi and the Morlocks. However, it nicely subverts that relationship and the plot has a very pleasing twist to it. In ‘The Visitors’, the Player Characters get to runaround early sixties London, get caught up in pop mania, and chase down some nasty aliens—including a creepy man in a bowler hat and some popstars! Lastly, in ‘It Takes a Village’, the Player Characters arrive at a seventeenth century tavern to discover the locals discussing the very latest in galactic events! It is a great set-up and dies involve a witchfinder, but the epilogue does leave the Game Master without any suggestions as to how to resolve it, which is disappointing. All four scenario hooks are good and though some require a little more development than others, it is not difficult to imagine them being portrayed on screen.

Physically, The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen is well presented. The screen itself is sturdy and easy to use, whilst the ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ is clean and tidy and easy to read. If there is an issue, it is that the Game Master will need a bag in which to store its various parts and not lose them!

The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen is useful, but not necessarily all of it and not necessarily all of the time. Primarily this is due to the fact that the roleplaying game demphasises combat, so those tables are not always going to be needed. This does not mean that they not useful, just useful when needed. The advice in the ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ is broad, but nevertheless, also useful, whilst the ‘Random Adventure Generator’ is a very handy tool, and of course, adventure hooks are always useful, and the four adventures in the ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ are fun. Overall, The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen is a useful access for Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition.

Scares Under Scotland

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a Secret War against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal takes place on the Home Front with the Player Characters, or Agents, suddenly rushed to the Scottish coast where a strange discovery has been made. With the Battle of France over and the Nazi war machine readying itself for Operation Sea Lion, Britain is frantically preparing defences against imminent invasion. In Scotland, this includes teams of coast watchers keeping an eye for roving U-boats, whilst just inland, near the sleepy village of St Abbs, an archaeological dig led by Professor Angus MacLeary, has made a discovery in an ancient cave system below a hill that sits behind a megalithic stone circle that stands looking over the sea. This is a highly valuable cache of the Blauer Kristall—or Blue Crystal—much coveted by Nachtwölfe, which uses it to fuel its increasingly weird weapons of war. Section M has been alerted to the discovery and quickly despatches a team of Agents, that is, the Player Characters, north to investigate and secure what could be a war-winning resource for analysis by the boffins at Clemens Park.

From the outset, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal sounds quite a bit like Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under the Gun and in a great many ways, it is. Both scenarios are set on the Home Front and both take place in August—Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under the Gun in August, 1940 and Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal in late August/early September. Both scenarios are intended as sequels to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard, and thus both scenarios have the issue of the latter taking place in August, 1940. So there is a tight timeline involved. Both scenario involve a discovery being made underground which first attracts the attention of Section M, then the associated forces of the Mythos—in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun it is Deep Ones, whereas in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal, it is the Mi-Go—and both end in a three-way tussle between the Agents, the agents of the Mythos, and one of the Nazi factions in the secret war. Surprisingly, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal, it is Black Sun and not Nachtwölfe. Since it involves the Black Sun, it can be run after the events of ‘A Quick Trip to France’ found in the Achtung! Cthulhu Quickstart: A Quick Trip to France.

This is not to say that there are no differences. The Agents will have the opportunity to engage a little with the locals at the village pub at one in the scenario and there is an engagingly Hitchcockian feel to the train journey from London to Scotland. The Agents will also have their first encounter proper with the Mi-Go, one of the utterly alien factions in the Secret War, and may be able to parley with them in order to persuade them to work as allies, if only temporarily, against the Black Sun soldiery which has landed on the coast to take control of everything. There is more scope for roleplaying too, with the villagers, with the members of the coastal watch, with the members of the archaeological team, and even with the Mi-Go! What Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal also does is introduce the Agents to both two more factions in the Secret War—Black Sun and the Mi-Go—and to the fact that the relationship between the Nazi factions, Black Sun and Nachtwölfe, is actually a rivalry.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is another short, sharp scenario which can be completed in a single session. There is a bit of clean-up in terms of what happens to the members of the archaeological dig and any captured Black Sun agents or troops, and the success of the Agents is measured in just how much and who they can get back to London. Success is not guaranteed through as the Agents face some tough Black Sun forces for a small group and they may make any potential successes less guaranteed by not making allies in the scenario. This a tough little scenario, high on combat and action over investigation.

Although Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is not a complex scenario, like the previous Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun, its climax does involve a big battle with multiple opponents and factions, so it does feel a little like a mini-wargame rather than the climax of a roleplaying scenario. Certainly, the Game Master might want to have the factions involved in this tunnel and cave-based confrontation divided between herself and the Player Characters to make it easier to run and give her fewer dice to roll and NPCs to keep track of.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the maps of the various locations are decently done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is a short and serviceable scenario, more action and combat than investigation. Its main problem is that it feels too much like Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun, so the Game Master may want to run at least one scenario, if not more between the two if she is running the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 scenarios in chronological order. Otherwise, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is an easy scenario to add to an early war campaign for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20.

Horror House Hell

Have you wondered what would happen if a group of squatters looking for a place to stay or estate agents showing around prospective buyers got trapped in a haunted house? It is an intriguing idea, perhaps more interesting than the traditional trick or treating kids or new homeowners. After all, we already know how desperate either group is. The squatters desperate enough to break into an old house looking for somewhere to sleep and the estate agents desperate to make a sale and get the property off their books. If you are intrigued, then This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is what you want. This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is roleplaying game of ordinary folk being trapped in a haunted house, scared, petrified, and even dying from the frights that the spiritual trauma bound into the building are inflicting upon them. Initially uncertain, the protagonists—or victims—will over the course of three acts, suffer creepy events such as footsteps in another room or a music box playing by itself and then face obstacles like the lights going out and having to scrabble about in the dark or the faces in all of the portraits or photographs suddenly breaking into screams, before confronting the ghostly or ghoulish doings with a séance to appease a spirit’s woes or one of their number becomes possessed and begins to stalk everyone else in a murder spree!

This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a micro-game published by Parable Games, the British publisher best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. It was funded as part of the publisher’s Parable Games ZineQuest RPG Buffet on Kickstarter. It pitches very ordinary—quite literally, each one is an everyman—into a terrifying situation, puts them through the ringer, and sees which ones survive. And survival is the prize. It is designed to be played in a single session, is very light in terms of mechanics, and comes packed with a bunch of prompts to use at every stage of the game. Some preparation is required in terms of the Housekeeper—as the Game Master is known in This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED—deciding upon the type of haunted house the Player Characters will be trapped in. Will it be a classic gothic mansion, a crumbling castle on the hill, or some irritating millionaire tech bro’s mansion? The choice will help the Game Master decide upon the nature of the haunting and how it will manifest over the course of the game. Beyond that though, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a very low preparation roleplaying game, so good to have as a back-up or impromptu game.

In terms of the Player Characters, what the Game Master and her players need to decide is what the characters are. Several options are suggested, including the squatters and the estate agents, and beyond that, nothing. No Player Character has any skills to speak of, at least in a mechanical sense and the only stats are Harm and Will, like this:

Margorie Whittingham (Mrs.)
Estate Agent
Harm: 10
Will: 3

Mechanically, for a player to have his character overcome a challenge in This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED, he rolls two six-sided dice and attempts to get a result of seven or more. If he succeeds, fine. If not, he fails and bad things happen to him. The player is free to decide if his character is above average at this task or below average. In which case, he receives a bonus or penalty of one, respectively. The difficulty of the task can levy a penalty ranging from Difficult and -1 to Why Bother? and -4. Combat is primarily narrative driven, and since the Player Characters are ordinary folk, they rarely have the initiative or an advantage. If the threat is incorporeal, then the Player Characters will need to use the occult or some other means, to inflict harm upon them.

A Player Character suffers physical damage to his Harm and mental damage to his Will, including being scared. Both physical damage and frights can come from creepy events, obstacles, and confronting the danger itself, as well as from failing a roll on occasion. Reducing his Harm to zero will kill a Player Character, but when his Will is reduced to zero, he will become petrified. This imposes a further penalty on all rolls. However, if the player succeeds at a roll when his character is petrified, some Will is recovered and he is no longer petrified.

This is the extent of the rules to This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED, just two pages out of its twelve-page running length. The rest of the roleplaying game is dedicated to helping the Housekeeper create her haunted house and decide upon its nature. There is some advice, actually decent advice given the length of the game, and then lots of tables with lots of entries. These include reasons why the house is haunted and the ‘Minor Creepy Events’ for Act One, the ‘Haunting’ events for Act 2, and the nature of the final confrontation in the ‘Finale’ for Act 3. This is accompanied by a long list of ghostly enemies, from Poltergeist, Banshee, and Ghoul to Demon, Hellhound, and Legion. The Player Characters are supported by a list of possible weapons, from the mundane, like the rolling pin and the cleaver, and the magical, like the ritual dagger and Latin Dictionary (although the latter has a one-in-six chance of working, and a one-in-six chance of the Player Character failing in a Latin word salad).

Structurally, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is played out over three acts. In the first act, the Player Characters explore the house and suffer minor haunting effects. By the end of this, they will realise that they are all trapped inside and cannot escape—and of course, there is a table for this—and then in the second act, the serious haunting begins. This is when the Player Characters scramble for resources to survive and the means to overcome the threat they will confront in the third act, the finale.

Physically, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is simply, cleanly laid out and written. It is easy to read and the tables easy to use, since the Housekeeper is going to be referring to them on a regular basis. It is pitched as a fanzine, but really, that is only because the roleplaying game is short rather than the the format or inspiration.

This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a quick and dirty horror roleplaying game—low preparation, easy-to-play, and packed with prompts and ideas. Perfect for a gaming group in need of a fast game now and for the Housekeeper happy to improvise.