1986: Delta Force

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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The year is 1986. The Cold War continues unabated, the political, military, and economic forces of the Soviet Bloc and the Warsaw pact continuing to stand off against Western Bloc and NATO. Yet there is hope that the relationship between the United States and the USSSR can change, even thaw, with the appointment of Mikhail Gorbachev as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union the year before. In comparison to the present incumbents, he is seen as progressive and has already sought to improve Soviet–US relations, including participating in the Geneva Summit in 1985. Yet the USA—and many of the countries it is allied with—face another threat. International terrorism. Numerous organisations, often radically Left Wing, anti-American, anti-bourgeois, and anti-Israel groups seek to strike terror in western countries. In Germany, the Baader-Meinhof Gang robs banks, bombs US military bases, and supports Palestinian radicals. In Italy, Brigade Rosse also attacks US military bases, commits robberies and kidnaps, and murders judges, members of the police, and journalists. Numerous groups linked, but not necessarily directly affiliated to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, such as Black September, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestine Liberation Front, conduct attacks on NATO bases and Israel and civilian targets across Europe and rival factions, as well as hijacking cruise liners and passenger aeroplanes. These are not the only terrorist groups operating in 1986, but they are perhaps the most notorious. Worse, many of these organisations are state-funded—by the USSR, Libya, Iraq, and Iran—and hovering between is the infamous Carlos the Jackal.  In response, governments across the West turn to their militaries and from their existing special forces units, establish and train anti-terror forces. In the United Kingdom, this is the famed SAS, in West Germany, this is GSG-9, and in the USA, this is 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D), better known as Delta Force.

Operations against the international terrorist organisations of the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties are the subject of Delta Force: America Strikes Back! Designed (and illustrated) by William H. Keith, Jr., best known for his deep contributions to the background and setting of Game Designers’ Workshop’s seminal Science Fiction roleplaying game, Traveller, it was the first roleplaying game to be published by Task Force Games, better known for the Star Fleet Battles and Starfire Science Fiction wargames. It is interesting to note that The Delta Force, a film starring Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin, was also released in 1986. Of course, there is no connection between the two, but the release of the film cannot have failed to elevate the prominence of the roleplaying game. At least within the hobby. Although two other military-themed roleplaying games were published in 1986—Freedom Fighters from Fantasy Games Unlimited (designed by J. Andrew Keith, William’s brother, but also illustrated by William H. Keith, Jr. with surprisingly similar covers) and the in some ways subtler The Price of Freedom, designed by Greg Costikyan and published by West End Games, and that in addition to the Phoenix Command  fire combat rules from Leading Edge Games, the year marks the end of the strand of mundane military-themed roleplaying games. As the Cold War ebbed and relations between the West and East improved, so too did interest in strictly military roleplaying games slip away. Only fifteen years later with the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbour and the USA’s entry into World War 2 did interest in military roleplay games revive and that was with the military of past not the present. Arguably, the military roleplaying games of the early twenty-first century were not beset by the moral complexities of those nineteen-eighties.

Delta Force: America Strikes Back! is a boxed set containing three booklets, a three-panel Game Master Screen, and two six-sided dice. The three booklets, coverless and done in black and white with greyscale artwork also done by the author, consist of the forty-eight-page ‘Rules of Play’ book, the forty-page ‘Warbook’ book, and the thirty-two ‘Scenarios’ book. Although the internal artwork depicts the members of Delta Force in action as you would expect, there are a couple of illustrations depicting the blood-spattered and bullet-ridden bodies of terrorists and a special forces operative just having killed a sentry with a knife. It is surprisingly blunt in its depiction of the consequences of the Player Characters’ actions. The Game Master Screen has all of the tables that he needs to run Delta Force: America Strikes Back! on the one side with illustrations of members of Delta Force in action the front.

A Player Character in Delta Force: America Strikes Back! is defined by Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and Intelligence, which range in value between five and fifteen. From these are derived five secondary statistics—Training, Endurance, Experience, Reactions, and Stamina. Of these, Agility is physical co-ordination; Dexterity is fine manipulation; and Reactions are how quickly a Player Character responds to danger and threats. Training represents a Player Character’s military and specialist training, whilst Experience indicates his time in service and actual combat experience. Both Training and Experience are used as points that are spent to purchase levels in individual skills.

The Player Character creation process involves rolling dice for the four core attributes and then some arithmetic to determine the secondary attributes and other factors. Skills are categorised into Native, Basic Military, and Specialist Skills. The primary means of gaining skills during character creation is by selecting templates according to the nationality of the character. Skills such as languages, Culture, Negotiation, Interrogation, and so on, do point towards Delta Force: America Strikes Back! being a roleplaying game, but it very much a gun-first roleplaying game. Templates are provided for Delta Force and Seal teams of the USA, the Dutch Royal Marines of the Netherlands, West Germany’s GSG-9, the SAS of Great Britain, Italy’s Squadron Anti-Commando, Sayeret Matkal of Israel, and Egypt’s Unit 777. There is some bias here in that the more attention is devoted to the eponymous 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (1st SFOD-D) than the special forces units of other countries in that members receive more training beyond basic military training. Another oddity is that that none of the templates for or details of the special forces units are in the ‘Rules of Play’ booklet which is where character generation begins, but in the ‘Warbook’. The creation process is not complex, but it is fiddly. Oddly, there is no means of determining rank and no difference is made between enlisted soldiers and officers, important given that officers in most militaries have to attend military college and receive different training.

Name: Lowell Larson

Unit: Delta Force

Training: Basic Military Training, Airborne Special Training, Rangers Special Training, Special Forces

CHARACTER STATS

Strength 14 Agility 11 Dexterity 10 Intelligence 07

Training 09 Endurance 15 Experience 12 Reactions 09 Stamina 12

Weight: 94 kg Age: 29 Handedness: Righthanded

Load Carried (Unburdened): 28 kg

Load Carried (Burdened): 42 kg

Load Carried (Heavily Burdened): 84 kg

Load Lifted: 112 kg

Load Dragged: 140 kg

MILITARY SKILLS

Area Survival (Desert) 1, Area Survival (Forest) 2, Area Survival (Jungle) 3, Area Survival (Mountain) 1, Boat Handling 3, Camouflage 2, Chemical Warfare 1, Climbing 2, Commo Operator 2, Commo Repair 2, Culture (Shi’ite Moslem) 1, Driving 2, Demolitions 3, Driving (Heavy Equipment) 3, Driving (Motorcycle) 2, Driving (Tracked) 1, First Aid 1, Free Fall 1, HALO 2, Hand-to-Hand Combat 5, Language (Arabic) 2, Leadership 2, Mechanic 3, Negotiation 1, Night Operations 3, Orienteering 3, Parachute 3, Stealth 3, Swimming 2, Tactics 2
 

WEAPON SKILLS

Hand Guns 1, Foreign Weapons 1, Knife Fighting 1, Light Automatic Weapons 3, Machine Guns 4, Mortars 1, Rifles 1, Sniper 1, Special Weapons (Grenade Launchers) 1

Mechanically, Delta Force: America Strikes Back! manages to both underwhelm and threaten to overwhelm. It uses two six-sided dice, much like Traveller which William H. Keith, Jr. had also worked on, but where in Traveller, a player needs to roll high to succeed, in Delta Force: America Strikes Back! a player must roll under to succeed. All rolls in the roleplaying game are counted as ‘Critical Rolls’. To make a ‘Critical Roll’, a Relative Difficulty Factor (RDF), which can range from between one and ten, is deducted from the statistic a player is rolling against. A skill adds a modifier to the stat being tested. The problem here is that between the sections on ‘Relative Difficulty’ and ‘Applying Skills’ it is not explicitly explained that a successful roll is one of equal to or under, rather than over. However, it does state that, “Since complicating factors in a task might be almost anything, there are no clear-cut rules for establishing an RDF.” In other words, there are no set difficulty factors and the play of Delta Force: America Strikes Back! is very much down to Referee judgement.

If Delta Force: America Strikes Back! is vague about its core mechanic, it is detailed about everything else! This is where it begins to overwhelm, starting with the time and travel rules. ‘Strategic Periods’ can last minutes, hours, or days, and cover periods of travel or relative inactivity, or rather non-combat. This includes mission briefings, planning, and intelligence gathering. The travel rules encompass movement by foot, tracked and wheeled vehicles, and by air. For ground travel, there are modifiers for terrain and weather, whilst for air there are modifiers for weather and other hazards which can lead to malfunctions or crashes. For extended activities, including combat, Endurance checks are required and will result in a temporary loss of Endurance if failed.

Prior to combat, the Player Characters need to spot the enemy. Intelligence, whether provided during a briefing prior to a mission or by an update during a mission, may already indicate where the terrorist enemies are, but not always and there is possibility of a chance encounter or a different pattern of activity by the terrorists. In such situations, a ‘Sighting’ check is required. The ‘Base Sighting Number’ is based on range, from thirty for under five meters to one for five thousand meters and more. This modified by light, weather, terrain, target type, target character, and the sighting character to give a ‘Modified Sighting Number’. Roll under this and the Player Characters will have spotted the enemy (or the enemy spotted the Player Characters).

Once done, there is a chance that the Player Characters can surprise the enemy, based on their Stealth skill and the enemies’ Alertness Factor, which ranges from five and fully alert and ready to one or “Drunk, dazed, or thoroughly engaged in doing something else.” Actual combat is played out in five-second ‘Tactical Rounds’ and initiative is determined by the Referee based on the logical and obvious course of events. A Player Character or other combatant can take as many actions as he wants in Tactical Round, the limiting factor being time. If an action takes longer than five seconds, that is longer than a single Tactical Round, it will spill over into the next round. However, bar movement distances and the reload time for weapons in the ‘Warbook’, there is no set list of actions and the time they take. Again, this is down to Referee judgement.

Direct fire is determined by the range and the weapon used—each weapon listed in the ‘Warbook’ having its own range table—to give a ‘Base To-Hit Number’ which is modified by movement, cover and visibility, vehicle type and size, how the weapon is used (including Weapon skill), aiming, and firing mode. The rules cover semi-automatic, burst, automatic, and suppressive fire as well as aimed and opportunity fire. The ‘Penetration Number’ of a weapon determines whether a round overcomes the Armour Value of any cover, which includes wood, sheet metal, concrete, bricks, and stone by thickness. Also included are ratings for furniture, human bodies, and of course, Kevlar armour. Hand-to-hand combat handles most melee situations, whilst the advanced rules add more detail, including martial arts (using the Martial Arts skill) and various manoeuvres. With that detail comes greater complexity and longer playing time, so they probably best saved for showdowns with more important NPCs or to silence a prominent . The rules also cover grenades and attacks against vehicles, mostly civilian and utility vehicles, rather armour. The rules for grenades also cover what happens if a Player Character wants to throw a grenade back or even himself onto a grenade if he wants to protect his buddies and/or win the Medal of Honour.

Damage to Player Characters and NPCs is handled as wounds rather than Hit Points. These are suffered per hit location and can be light, moderate, or severe. A light wound will reduce a Player Character’s stats, a moderate wound will typically disable a limb as well as reducing stats, and a severe wound will incapacitate a Player Character and may even leave him with a severed or mangled limb. A Player Character or NPC can also be killed outright and severe wounds can bleed. Wounds and blood loss can also lead to a loss of Stamina and when that falls to zero, a Player Character is dead. However, a player never knows what his Stamina currently is, only the effects of its loss. This is an interesting narrative wrinkle in a simulationist roleplaying game, but it does mean that the Referee has to track the Stamina values for all of the Player Characters and the NPCs. Wound location is determined by the degree of cover protecting the target and then a random role modified by half of the weapon skill used and the Sniper skill. Although a Player Character will probably have the benefit of cover and wearing body armour, getting shot at is a nasty, brutal experience. First Aid will stablise a wounded or injured Player Character or NPC, but in keeping with the simulationist nature of Delta Force: America Strikes Back!, it takes time, rest, and recuperation for a Player Character to recover from anything more than a scratch.

Other rules cover parachute drops, communications, morale and panic for NPCs, and oddly, victory conditions for scenarios. Thus, ten points for achieving the primary mission goal, two each hostage rescued, two for each terrorist captured or killed, and so on, with points deducted for hostages being wounded or killed, each Delta Force team member killed or captured, and more. This sort of makes every scenario repayable to see if the players and their characters can do better each time, but it also makes the play of a mission less like a roleplaying game scenario, and more like a video game mission or miniatures wargame scenario. However, what it is supposed to reflect is the American public’s reaction to the execution of a mission, successful or otherwise, with it being noted that a poorly handled mission can lead to war with the nation where a mission is being staged or the loss of an ally. Essentially, “It should always be remembered that elite military units assault teams such as Delta Force are extensions of American foreign policy — the President’s final resort when American lives and property are in danger. To be effective, such military units must strike hard, fast, and with surgical precision.”

Rounding out the ‘Rules of Play’ booklet is a set of three appendices. The third details various martial arts, but the first two give ‘The Delta Force Referee’ and ‘Surviving in Delta Force’, advice for the Referee and the player respectively. Both are a page in length and advise that both player and Referee start small with simple situations and training exercises. The author recognises that whilst the Referee has less of world to create because Delta Force: America Strikes Back! is set in the here and now, he has a lot to keep track of in terms of information to keep the world feeling real. The Referee is also advised to not always apply every combat modifier and to not be concerned about precise ranges or movement values, usually to ease play, but at other times to heighten the tension.  Arguably, this is contradictory advice since it means that the author is telling the Referee that this simulationist roleplaying game is too much of simulationist roleplaying game, though only when it matters. Lastly, the advice points out that few if any Delta Force players are likely to have had any actual combat experience, so it is okay for the Referee to take the player whose character is leader aside and warn him of things that a real team leader know. This is further supported in the advice for players which focuses on roleplaying members of Delta Force rather than The A-Team and suggests numerous tactics and good practices.

The second book, the ‘Warbook’ is one part gear and equipment guide, one part setting guide, and one part the other half of the character creation rules. The first half lists stats and details of all of the hand guns, assault rifles, submachine guns, rifles, shotguns, special weapons, and grenade launchers that the Player Characters might arm themselves with and the referee might arm the enemy with. Most of them make sense. The inclusion of the Auto-Mag .44 seems more like a nod to cinematic recreation rather than reality and the inclusion of the Heckler & Koch G11 seems more like contractual obligation for a nineteen eighties military roleplaying game. A handful of vehicles are given stats, the M-113 APC being the only military vehicle, whilst more detail is paid to a range of civilian and military transport aeroplanes and helicopters. These are all included to be used to get the Player Characters close to the mission target and then away again, rather than provide onsite support. There are also sections on communications and surveillance gear as well as general items. Overall, the equipment content of the ‘Warbook’ is a job well done.

The penultimate section in the ‘Warbook’ consists of the ‘Delta Force Warbook Dossiers’. These detail twenty-one terrorist organisations across European, Middle Eastern, and both North and American theatres of operation. Each write-up describes each organisation’s origin, ideology, international ties, history, and present activities. The bulk of these are Palestinian, whilst there are some less prominent groups such as the Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo in Argentina and the Republik Malaku Selatan in the Netherlands. The Provisional Irish Republican Army is written for use in the United Kingdom and the USA, but the write-ups for domestic US terrorist organisations—the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Army, and the Weatherman—are very broad in comparison. There is no denying that these groups committed acts of terror, but how much of a threat these groups posed to United States security is open to debate and by the time of that Delta Force: America Strikes Back! was published in 1986, they were all defunct anyway. Of course, Delta Force itself, as part of the US military, has limited capacity to operate on American soil. What the sole inclusion of these groups does indicate is a strong anti-Left Wing bias present in Delta Force: America Strikes Back!, since it ignores any Right Wing terror groups or movements—on home soil or abroad.

The last part of the ‘Warbook’ gives the templates for the special forces and anti-terror units featured in Delta Force: America Strikes Back!. It is followed by the templates for European, Middle-Eastern, and western hemisphere terrorists. These are again, fairly broad in their treatment.

The play of Delta Force: America Strikes Back! is mission-based and fairly formulaic in its structure. The Player Characters receive a briefing, plan the operation, select equipment, move to the area of operation, conduct the mission, and then exfiltrate, returning to base for a debriefing. Plus, of course, the valuation according to the Victory conditions for the mission. This makes missions easier to set up by the Referee, but barring the page of advice in the appendices of the ‘Rules of Play’ booklet, Delta Force: America Strikes Back! is decidedly lacking when it comes help in designing missions, whilst the possibility of long term play is mentioned, but really only as an aside rather than be supported.

The three missions in the third booklet, ‘Scenarios’ all have their own mission objectives, location, and background as well as the mission for the Referee and the Victory table for determining how well the Player Characters did. They start out simple with ‘Operation Red Thunder’ in which the Player Characters must rescue hostages held at a PX (a retail store found on US Army installations that sells food, clothing, and goods to military personnel and their families) on a US Army base in Germany as well as capture one of the terrorists. The complexity rises with ‘Operation Lightning’. The Player Characters must rescue American and Israeli hostages held aboard WTA Flight 874 on the ground at Beirut Airport as well as capture a hostage and prevent the local Shi’ite Amal militia from reinforcing the hijackers. It is nicely detailed and is accompanied by detailed NPCs and advice on running the mission for the Referee. Lastly, ‘Operation Swiftsure’ returns the Player Characters to Beirut where they have to penetrate an Islamic Jihad planning centre and headquarters, kidnap its leader, acquire intelligence data, and destroy the planning centre and make it look like a rocket attack. Again, it is nicely detailed and as with the other two scenarios are accompanied by decent location maps.

Physically, Delta Force: America Strikes Back! is decently presented for the time. The illustrations are not bad, but not really great either, but they are in keeping with the world that the roleplaying game is portraying. That said, the depiction of Middle Eastern is far from positive. The cartography is simple, clear, and easy to understand.

—oOo—

Phil Frances reviewed Delta Force: America Strikes Back! in Open Box in White Dwarf #84 (December, 1986). After describing the basics of the roleplaying game, he said, “Actually the game itself isn’t too bad – the rules are comprehensive, and don’t waste space getting their point across.” However, he concluded by saying, “In all, not a bad game, I suppose, but it’s very unethical and awfully tasteless. Is it Ok to talk about ethics and taste in a review? No? Give me a place to hide them…”

Thomas A. Grant reviewed Delta Force: America Strikes Back! in Game Reviews in Different Worlds Issue 47 (Fall, 1987). Interestingly, he evaluated the roleplaying game on the basis of its rules, its capacity to simulate modern small-unit tactics, and its treatment of its subject matter. Of the rules, he said, “All in all, Delta Force provides a competent though unexceptional role-playing system.” whilst of its capacity to simulate modern small-unit tactics, he stated that, “As a game of modern small-unit tactics, equipment, and training, Delta Force is very good. The game includes an exhaustive listing of weapons, equipment, and vehicles, including every type of military-issue firearm of  which I’m aware.” Of its subject matter—terrorism and counterterrorism—he was more critical, pointing out that its illustrations depict its terrorists as stereotypes, that is, “…[T]he unkempt Middle Eastern terrorist with a large black mustache and five-o’clock shadow” and thus as barbarians. He concluded, “Admittedly, Delta Force shows only part of the entire counterterrorism picture, though it gives no acknowledgement to the existence of anything else. Handling a controversial subject such as this is bound to displease someone, and Delta Force will probably sell mostly to people whose minds are made up about terrorism. However, just as politicians and bureaucrats often are led into blunders by looking at too narrow a piece of a problem, so too can the citizens at large. Delta Force, for the important subject it tries to cover, is just too narrow. Still, for the student of modern “unconventional” warfare, Delta Force can provide some important lessons.”

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Delta Force: America Strikes Back! draws comparisons with Phoenix Command, published by Leading Edge Games in the same year. Both offer detailed combat simulations and both could be played as modern skirmish wargames. In fact, given its lack of non-combat skills, Phoenix Command works better as a modern skirmish wargame. Whilst both are comprehensive, Phoenix Command has the advantage of being a more coherent and definitely a more coherently explained set of rules. Delta Force: America Strikes Back! suffers from a lack of explanation in places, but gives a player a more rounded—though not too rounded—character to play, as well as setting which to play. One that would have been familiar to roleplayers in the nineteen eighties. Of the two, Delta Force: America Strikes Back! is the more engaging of the two, since it has an actual premise and appears to have been written by humans.

[Free RPG Day 2026] Tradition of Destruction

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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“Thou art forbidden to destroy another of thy kind. The right of destruction belongeth only  to thine Elder. Only the Eldest among thee shall call the Blood Hunt.” This is the ‘Tradition of Destruction’, the Fifth Tradition of the Camarilla, and the theme front and centre of the release from Renegade Game Studios for Free RPG Day 2026. As well as, of course, its name. Tradition of Destruction is a scenario for Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition, that explores what happens when members of the Camarilla break this particular tradition. Intended to be played in a single session—so good for a one-off, demonstration, or convention game—in which the Player Characters are vampires seeking revenge at all costs. A decade ago, and more, the Player Characters had a domain in the city which included an alliance, even a friendship, with the Tyros, a trio of Duskborn, or Fourteenth Generation Vampires. Then they betrayed the Player Characters and left them for dead, all in the name of a better deal with a more powerful figure in the city.

Tradition of Destruction opens with the Player Characters dealing with an information broker attempting to find out where the Tyros are now. They may be able to persuade her to tell them, but a deal may be needed or another means used to get hold of the information that they need. All of these are explored in detail, but ideally, the Player Characters should learn the location of one or more of the Tyros. Each of the three can be encountered in their own scenes and each of these scenes is very different. One is found in a auto salvage yard/chop shop where one of the employees is hiding a secret; another at home where he wants a quiet life with his husband, who knows he is vampire, but not all of his secrets; and a third who has effectively defected to Project, the secret joint programme run by the United States CIA and NSA to track and hunt vampires. Each scene varies in its challenges and the Player Characters are free to approach each Tyro in whatever way they want, the scene descriptions covering several options and their consequences. These options do include violence, but usually as the last option, and if it occurs, the Player Characters will likely have given into their bestial natures and broken the ‘Tradition of Destruction’. Though violence is always the answer, it is not necessarily the best one, and instead of killing the Tyros, the Player Characters are free to take their revenge in whatever way that they like. That can include sending them into exile, getting them to betray their current master, and so on.

The last scene will be with the important figure in the city who persuaded the Tyros to betray the Player Characters. This can play out at their rival’s domain or it can take place at the Elysium in the front of the city’s prince. As a one-shot, Tradition of Destruction ends there, but the scenario could be used to kick off a Chronicle and so explore the consequences of the Player Characters’ actions in subsequent sessions. The scenario includes notes on how those might play out if the Storyteller wants to continue the story. In addition, there is advice too on the tone and horror content in the scenario.

The scenario includes a coterie of pre-generated Kindred. They come complete with background, concept, ambition, conviction, and touchstone as well as the stats, a clan bane, and event a secret or two. They consist of a refined investor Ventrue, Coterie Mastermind Lasombra, Dedicated Sorcerer Tremere, False Death God Malkavian, Impulsive Punk Brujah, and a Domineering Voyeur Nosferatu. All six come with a character sheet that also includes a full colour portrait. 

Physically, Tradition of Destruction is well presented. It is clean, bright, and tidy. The artwork is excellent.

Whether run as a one-shot or a Chronicle starter, Tradition of Destruction is a good scenario for Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition. It has scope for both action and interaction, multiple means of handling the situations that the Player Characters face, and is easily run in the city of the Storyteller’s choice.

All the Action—Everywhere

Inspired by the classic action films of the past sixty years—Die Hard, Goldfinger, Kingsman, Ocean’s Eleven, Hot Fuzz, Lethal Weapon, and John Wick, the cinematic action roleplaying game Outgunned is designed to do three things. One is to handle a variety of different action films, from chases and heists to Spy-Fi and hostage situations. The second is to help deliver short action-packed sessions, tending towards one-shots or ‘Shots’, and in keeping with the genre, sequels. The third is to play fast and easy, and definitely encourage the action. Originally published by Two Little Mice following a successful Kickstarter campaign, but now published by Free League Publishing, the award-winning Outgunned fills what would appear to cover a relatively limited niche in roleplaying. Which is not a bad thing. However, Action Flicks begs to differ, shucking off its leather jacket, peering over the top of its sunglasses, and giving a million dollar grin in a hundred thousand dollar direct-to-video movie before taking you round the universe—or is that multiverse? This is a supplement which takes you to ten different genres which you knew that Outgunned should and could do, lets you play in them for a bit, or at least for a long as the film lasts, leaving you waiting for the sequel.

Action Flicks is a book of mini-settings for Outgunned. Or rather sub-genres, because it does Space Opera, martial arts or Wuxia, swashbuckling, superpowers, kids in danger (bicycles optional), magical kids, hunting aliens, hunting ghosts New York-style, hunting vampires and/or werewolves, and cyberpunk. Which is a lot for a small, two-hundred page book. Each sub-genre is given a similar treatment. This includes an introduction to the specific sub-genre, a list of what it contains; ‘Action Homework’—a lengthy list of the touchstone films and television series which inspires the particular sub-genre treatment in Action Flicks that both the Director and her players should watch; an examination of its core themes and some hooks for the Director to develop into full missions; new rules and roles; new enemies and enemy feats; new genre-specific mechanics; and both a Hero ready for action and a dedicated Hero Sheet.

Or rather sub-genres, because it does Space Opera, martial arts or Wuxia, swashbuckling, superpowers, kids in danger (bicycles optional), magical kids, hunting aliens, hunting ghosts New York-style, hunting vampires and/or werewolves, and cyberpunk. Which is a lot for a small, two-hundred page book. Each sub-genre is given a similar treatment. This includes an introduction to the specific sub-genre, a list of what it contains; ‘Action Homework’—a lengthy list of the touchstone films and television series which inspires the particular sub-genre treatment in Action Flicks that both the Director and her players should watch; an examination of its core themes and some hooks for the Director to develop into full missions; new rules and roles; new enemies and enemy feats; new genre-specific mechanics; and both a Hero ready for action and a dedicated Hero Sheet.

The selection of sub-genres opens with ‘Star Raiders’ whose ‘Action Homework’ lists Firefly, The Fifth Element, The Mandalorian, Star Trek, and John Carter, but the touchstone for this first treatment is very obviously Star Wars. Which is no bad thing, since every treatment in Action Flicks is intended to be obvious in its inspiration just as with much the action films which inspire the core rules of Outgunned and thus its visual look and story beats are meant to be easy to grasp and run with. The core themes of ‘Star Raiders’ is ‘Know the Other’, that everyone in the galaxy is alien is each other and that a Hero should learn to navigate the differences in physiology and culture and work with others, whilst ‘For Freedom’ states that a Hero will always yearn to look to the sky and fly free despite what the authorities or the alien invaders or robot revolutionaries want.

In terms of new rules and gear, ‘Star Raiders’ replaces bullets with lasers, which are always loaded, so instead of running out of rounds, overheat. The weapons also include the Laster Crossbow as well as the Laser Blade. Star Pilots get to replace the Proven Driver Feat with the Star Pilot Feat, whilst the ‘Alien Diplomacy’ feat grants free rerolls on interactions with alien species and negates the standard penalty when doing so, ‘Hyperlight Evasion’ lets a starship crew jump to hyperlight to avoid a chase, and ‘Shoot First’ does exactly what you think it should. New roles include ‘Logical Thinker’, ‘Lonely Stranger’, and ‘Lovable Scoundrel’, whilst the ready-to-play Hero is the eponymous ‘Star Raider’, who could be Han Solo, Malcolm ‘Mal’ Reynolds, or Korben Dallas. Alien Feats ‘Amphibian’, ‘Big Guy’, ‘Little Guy’, ‘Brainiac’, and more enable player and Director alike to create alien Heroes and NPCs, whilst the rules for Starships adapt the vehicle rules to outer space by adding the need for a ‘Copilot’ and giving special actions such as ‘Raised Shields’ and ‘Asteroid Field’, the latter turning every action into a Gamble when passing through them.

There are notes too on how to add the ‘Power’ to ‘Star Raiders’. This combines the ‘Samurai’ Role from World of Killers with the Mental Powers of ‘Great Powers’, the superhero treatment later in the book. It is a pity that the Director needs to refer to another supplement, because this neatly distils the essence the archetype with just about enough a nod to the source, yet leaving room for Director and player to develop it as they want. Lastly, the ready-to-play Hero sheet is for very cute ‘Young Alien Nobody’.

‘Star Raiders’ packs a lot into its sixteen pages, enabling the Director to pick it up and start developing a galaxy her own and missions to fit, or taking the obvious inspiration from the ‘Action Homework’ and then running missions in their galaxies using Outgunned (rather than any licensed roleplaying games). Which is the point of Action Flicks. Yet ‘Star Raiders’ also does not quite pack enough, which an issue with a lot of the sub-genre treatments in Action Flicks. In the case of ‘Star Raiders’, there could have been more options for Alien Feats and the rules for robots are underwhelming, simply treating them as aliens and letting them take more Feats later on. As a sub-genre, ‘Star Raiders’ leans very much into space opera which does not feel right for one of its inspirations, Star Trek, which in most of its incarnations, is not as cinematic as Outgunned. Similarly, John Carter is a great choice for Outgunned, but deserves its own ‘Swords & Planet’ Action Flick entry rather than being lumped in with everything else here.

‘Rising Dragon’ is inspired by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers and brings Wuxia to Outgunned giving the option of Heroes learning Ancient Martial Arts such as Dragon Style, Drunken Style, or Monkey Style as they and everyone already knows martial arts, replacing with Plan B: Bullet with Plan B: Blade (again from World of Killers), and swapping Adrenaline with Qi. Daring Noble and Vengeful Ghost are fitting new roles and along with a range of new Feats, this is a solid little genre set that does not just have to remain fixed in some mythical past. It is easily mixed with sub-genres if the Director wants to run more Hong Kong-style films. The Pirates of the Caribbean, The Three Musketeers, and The Princess Bride are the inspiration for ‘Cloak & Dagger’, which does swashbuckling action. There are rules for horses, carriages, and flintlock weapons, and Plan B: Bullet is again replaced with Plan B: Blade, whilst the new Friendly Brute and Witty Casanova roles fit both the sub-genre and the humour that often runs through it. Depending upon the type of film, the Director and her players may need to engage with the humour more than in others.

Fundamental to the sub-genre is duelling and for this ‘Cloak & Dagger’ adapts the duelling rules from Household, also from Two Little Mice. With admonition not to repeat an action twice because it is boring, it suggests mixing skills to make duels exciting and dynamic, and optionally, adding Challenge Feats so the Director can customise a challenger to make him a capable duellist. It notes that the rules could apply to Heroes too should their ardours and tempers fly enough for them to want to settle matters of honour with each other. These Duelling rules enable a Director to set up some great scenes and confrontations and they could be used with ‘Rising Dragon’ too for confrontations with weapons rather than martial arts.

‘Great Powers’ is the superhero treatment for Outgunned in Action Flicks. It draws from Kick-Ass, Watchmen, and Daredevil amongst others. It gives rules for what happens to vigilantes whose identities are exposed, Plan B: Blast to go alongside Plan B: Bullet and Plan B: Blade, and ‘Powerless’, a new condition when a Superhero suffers the effects of his weakness. There are numerous new roles, like Billionaire Philanthropist and Chatty Mercenary, and specific to the genre, Super Feats rather than Feats. Every Superhero gets one at character creation and can swap a standard Feat for another one. Super Feats include ‘Flight’, ‘Gadget’ (which can cover retractable claws, spiderwebs, returning weapons, and so on), ‘Mind Powers’, ‘Regeneration’, ‘Super-Speed’, and more. The silliest is ‘Ruler of the Sea’, which lets the Superhero talk to fish! ‘Great Powers’ manages to cover a lot, but it has three problems. One, obviously, is that it has been superseded by Outgunned Superheroes. Two, the superhero genre encompasses a lot of subgenres itself and sixteen pages cannot cover everything. Three, ‘Great Powers’ has to work hard to get up to the Four Colour sub-genre and being for Outgunned is a better fit for the street level style.

As its title suggests, ‘Weirder Things’ covers inspirations such as The Goonies, Karate Kid, and most obviously, Stranger Things. Which again is quite a lot. First, it makes everyone young and removes the ‘Too Young to Die’ Feat and very much inspired by Stranger Things replaces a young Hero’s catchphrase with his favourite song and then backs it up with Plan B: Beat which comes into play when a Hero listens to that favourite song. The Director and her players need to decide quite how dangerous and deadly a ‘Weirder Things’ should be. Several Feats get replaced like ‘Better Than Walking’ for ‘Proven Driver’ and ‘Popular’ for ‘Heartbreaker’. The Hero ready for action is ‘The Loser’, very much inspired by Kevin McCallister from Home Alone along with many others.

‘A Kind of Magic’ is mostly obviously inspired by the Harry Potter books and films, but again it wants to cover a whole lot more like Doctor Strange, Big Trouble in Little China, and The Dresden Files. With rules for incantations and wands, magical culture, flying cars and broomsticks, and roles such as ‘Charming Bookworm’ and ‘Chosen One’ it really wants to stick to modelling the Harry Potter books and films rather than trying cover everything under its ‘Action Homework’. It does not help those aims by needing the Director and players to adapt the ‘Dog Trainer’ role from World of Killers and switch out the dog for an owl (or another suitable creature) to have a magical familiar. There is a short list of spells, each of which is effectively treated as a piece of Gear. The more obvious companion to ‘A Kind of Magic’ is ‘Weirder Things’, but ultimately, it would be a stretch for ‘A Kind of Magic’ to cover all of the inspirations it lists and perhaps there should be an Urban Fantasy treatment for Outgunned?

‘Killing Aliens’ is again more obvious in its inspirations—Aliens, Predator, Starship Troopers, and so on—but switches the role of the Heroes around to be the hunted in ‘You Are The Prey’. ‘Whatever It Takes’ gives the Hero an edge, but typically at a cost as the situation gets ever more desperate. Despite switching the Hero from hunter to hunted, this is a straightforward adaptation backed up with lots of alien enemies for the Director to build and several that come on-demand ready to play. ‘Ghost Hunters’ does the same with its ghosts and ghoulies on-demand or waiting to be built in a sub-genre adaptation that might include Caspar and Beetlejuice amongst its inspirations, but really is Ghostbusters writ large, especially with the new conditions of ‘Possessed’ and ‘Smeared’ (in sticky green ectoplasmic discharge!?).

Hunting takes place at night in the penultimate sub-genre treatment with ‘Midnight Wars’. Underworld and Blade are the primary inspirations, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer is another touchstone. It introduces three modes—‘Humans versus Monsters’, ‘Monsters versus Humans’, and ‘Monsters versus Monsters’—as the wars between vampires, werewolves, and humans continue. Plan B: Bullet and Plan B: Blade are joined by Plan B: Blood & Beast and Monstrous Feats such as ‘Lycanthrope’ and ‘Nosferatu’ enable a Hero to be a Monster Hero! The new gear is designed for anti-vampire and anti-vampire action and the new Role is the Slayer, looking exactly like Blade. This works well with the earlier ‘A Kind of Magic’ too.

The last sub-genre treatment is ‘Neon Noir’ which does cyberpunk for Outgunned. If the Director wants to add androids to this future, then the Synth Alien Feat option from ‘Star Raiders’ is the suggested option, whilst psychic powers can come from the ‘Great Powers’ sub-genre. The primary is that of cyberware, which is treated as gear. Every Hero in ‘Neon Noir’ has one piece, whilst the given Role of Solo can have another item. A Hero can also give up Feats to have more. Some of the items could easily added to the ‘Great Powers’ sub-genre to give an extra source of powers.

What is apparent with all ten of the sub-genres explored in Action Flicks for Outgunned is that how many will work with each other. For example, ‘Midnight Wars’, ‘A Kind of Magic’, and ‘Weirder Things’ to really do Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Action Flicks runs with the mix and match options and throws them all into the mixing bowl with ‘Everything at Once’. This allows Heroes to jump from one universe to another and even learn the Feats of one universe to take it to another and presents a new Role, ‘The Master of the Multiverse’, who can jump from universe to universe and channel the power of the Multiverse. It is a special Role, combining Role, Trope, and Job in one that uses a Multiverse Roulette instead of a Death Roulette. When ‘The Master of the Multiverse’ uses his Plan B: Break to create a crack in reality to the advantage of his allies, is Left for Dead, or taps into power of the Multiverse to Go to another universe, Grab an object from another universe, Send a target to another universe, or Pass to someone else in this universe, there is a chance that an Anomaly is created and that can really miss with the universe! ‘The Master of the Multiverse’ has a lot of power, but there is a price.

Physically, Action Flicks is a good looking book. The artwork is excellent and the layout clean and tidy, and easy to read.

Action Flicks is fantastically, genre-encompassing ambitious covering ten genres and over one hundred films and television series. However, Action Flicks cannot encompass everything about all of its genres. It just does not have the space. It also means that that none of the genres it explores are quite ready to play and in all too many cases, like ‘Great Powers’ and Outgunned Superheroes, the Director is going to wish that there was more, especially where genre descriptions really have to work hard to handle some of the given inspirational suggestions. However, the core essentials of its cinematic settings and sub-genres, ably supported with rule changes and additions, are all here in Action Flicks to help get the Director with every movie and mission the Director wants to write for Outgunned. The good news is that there are now sequels too—Action Flicks Vol. 2 and Action Flicks Vol. 3.

[Free RPG Day 2026] Air & Wind

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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For Free RPG Day 2026, Magpie Games published not one book, but six—Adventure Booklet 1: Earth & Root, Adventure Booklet 2: Fire & Brimstone, Adventure Booklet 3: Ash & Steel, Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind, and Adventure Booklet 5: Water & Mist as well as the Expanded Rules supplement. These are all for Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game, one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns for any roleplaying game. This is the roleplaying adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, animated series which are inspired by the indigenous cultures of North America and Asia, in particular, China, Chinese martial arts, and the ability to ‘bend’ or manipulate the four elements—water, earth, fire, and air. Only one person can bend all four elements, and he is known as the ‘Avatar’, and not only does he serve as the link between the physical world and the spirit world, but he is also responsible for maintaining harmony between the world’s four nations. In the roleplaying game, the players roleplay characters, or companions, who are capable of bending one of the elements as well as practising martial arts, all with the aim of protecting the world from harm and those unable to stand up to misuse of power.

As with the other four Adventure Booklets, Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind originally appeared in Wan Shi Tong’s Adventure Guide, which explores and presents adventures in the different eras of the Avatarverse, including the Kyoshi, Roku, the Hundred Year War, Aang, and Korra periods. Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind presents an adventure during the Aang period that sees them chased across the Earth Kingdom on a picturesque journey through the air accompanied by a wanted thief and the priceless artefact that she stole! Of course, there are numerous factions and peoples who want the artefact back and the thief apprehended. These include Yuzhen Sr., the owner and CEO of Sparrowkeet Air, the company which discovered the artefact, and his son, Yuzhen Jr—though they have very different reasons, and the Snowrats mercenary group and the Yu Dao Bounty Hunter’s Guild both of whom have picked up the bounty on the thief, and last of all, an inventor simply wanting to examine the artefact for what it is rather than anything else.

Like the scenario in Adventure Booklet 3: Ash & Steel, the scenario presented in Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind is a chase scenario. It begins in Boat Bottom, a sleepy fishing village on the coast of the western Earth Kingdom and will ultimately end with the Player Characters and their companion climbing the steps of the Beifong Metalbinding Academy on a mountain north of Yu Dao. Whilst the Player Characters are in Boat Bottom, they are approached by a hooded figure who asks for their help. They realise that they have seen her face before—on wanted posters pasted and dropped everywhere by Sparrowkeet Air, a corporation specialising in the construction of aerial contraptions. Her name is Qian Yu and she explains that she is not a thief, but rather an archaeologist who unearthed a lost Air Nomad artefact from before the Hundred Year War and took it with when she discovered that Sparrowkeet Air planned to sell it rather make it available to the whole world.

Once the Player Characters decide to trust Qian Yu, there are a couple of impediments to get out of Boat Bottom under the noses of the Sparrowkeet Air Guard. First, the artefact gets stolen and then the airship that she has ‘borrowed’ needs repairing, let alone a good pilot! After that, the chase is on, and the Player Characters are free to pilot the airship wherever they want. However, before that, the players get to decide a few things as part of the set-up. One is individually why they are in Boat Bottom and the other is the type and nature of the artefact that Qian Yu has excavated. This includes what it is, what makes it rare and irreplaceable as well as difficult to conceal or keep safe, why it is beautiful, and what is its historical meaning. This gives the players some investment in the artefact and in the need to get it somewhere safe.

What this means is that there is plenty of opportunity for confrontation and conflict, but there is chance too for roleplaying—especially with General Onomu. Initially, she is rude and entitled, still a general of the Fire Nation at heart, and will probably remain so unless the Player Characters intervene and perhaps help soften her attitudes towards those around her. This gives the Game Master a potentially interesting story arc for the general to portray.

Like the scenario in Adventure Booklet 3: Ash & Steel, the scenario presented in Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind is less open in its plotting and more directed. The Player Characters are not as free in their actions in this scenario than they are in the others in that they have a mission to perform and do have to travel from ‘A’ to ‘E’ via ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’. Yet like those other entries in the ‘Adventure Booklet’ series, its ending is open-ended and determined by the actions and decisions of the Player Characters as is the order in which they can visit the scenario’s various locations. These possibilities are discussed and there is solid advice for the Game Master along with detailed descriptions of all of the NPCs, groups, and important locations. In addition, there is advice too for the Game Master on how to handle airship combat scenes—primarily as narrative fight scenes until the Player Characters and NPCs get close to board the other’s vessel and on how to set up the scenario if the players are using their own characters rather than the pre-generated quintet which is included in Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind. The five pre-generated Player Characters for the adventure have all decided to help Qian Yu. They include Taiki the Bold, a Waterbender from the Northern Water Tribe keen to make a name for himself; Lan the Guardian, a warrior fisherwoman from Boat Bottom who wants to help the whole group; Kiki the Hammer, a Firebender who was going to take the bounty on Qian Yu, but has changed her mind; Yuxuan the Idealist, a technologist and trap builder wanting to find a way home; and Chesa the Rogue, an Earthbender want to escape his family’s banditry.

Also included are details of the Basic Moves and Balance Moves in Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game—in addition the Moves for all of the Player Characters—and the techniques that are not in the core book, plus the combat exchanges, statuses, and basic techniques. The Legendary NPC in Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind is Toph Beifong, an Earthbender that the Player Characters can meet at end of the scenario and whom Qian Yu knows. She can become an ally and teacher of the Player Characters in the future beyond the scenario.

Physically, Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind is well presented, sturdy booklet.

Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind is an exciting chase scenario with a chance for the Player Characters to add a little history to the setting, fly an airship, visit numerous locations and ultimately confront corporate greed. It is a great mix and that is in addition to all of the other opportunities for combat and interaction. Again, as with other entries in the series, Fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra will enjoy the background too and overall, Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind is great support for Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game.

Friday Fantasy: Underworld

In the cool of the ‘Underworld’ lurk spiders, centipedes, lizards, beetles, and bats—and of course, things much, much worse. It is a rougher, quieter place than the surface world, colder too with no light to shine in its caverns or over the black waters of its deep lakes. Adventurers venture deep underground perhaps looking for resources, hunting for threats to the surface world and its inhabitants, or even searching for lost treasure. Yet stray too long in the dark of the Underworld and anyone venturing below may be overwhelmed by the constant blackness and lack of light, their imaginations formulating things that they can see the edge of their vision, even horrors that can even unreal can work at their minds and composure. This is what might lie below the world of Dragonbane: Mirth & Mayhem Roleplaying, the roleplaying game published by Free League Publishing, and is explored in the supplement, Underworld.

Underworld is a mini-supplement and anthology of scenarios for Dragonbane which can easily be added to the Game Master’s own campaign or used to expand the ‘Misty Vale’ campaign setting detailed in the Dragonbane Core Set—not outwards, but downwards. Besides its three adventures, it gives an overview of what the ‘Underworld’ is like and describes several features, some of which can work with the three adventures. These include the bronze bridges which regularly cross three particular rivers in the ‘Underworld’ and if walked over or under trigger a dream-like vision in the walker, something that denizens take advantage of to ambush the momentary dreamers, and the Black Swans found on the three rivers that supposedly bring death to any demon that touches them, but which are hated by Goblins. There are some nice little elements here, odd enough to stand out, but with room to add more alongside them if the Game Master wants to. In terms of the Misty Vale, Underground details four different entrances via which the Player Characters enter the ‘Underworld’ and begin to explore part of its depths.

Each of the three ‘Underworld Quests’ has its own reward and the more the Player Characters complete, the more they will be rewarded. Each of the three also involves a demon and each also has a link to the ‘Secret of the Dragon Emperor’, which lies at the heart of the ‘Misty Vale’ campaign. In ‘Lair of Kavor’, the Player Characters descend to a subterranean Dwarven fort, perhaps in search of herbs or looking for something that might have been preying on local farmstock. It is occupied by a band of goblins and contains several demonic shrines and there are several puzzles that the Player Characters can poke at for various odd effects, including triggering some roleplaying. The demon is a Kavor Demon, a scraggy, four-armed thing with a vertical, many toothed mouth and eyes on either side which revel in carnage, can be distracted by fresh meat and blood. As a former Dwarven fortress, there is a lovely sense of the former occupants’ boredom when posted there, but as an ‘Underworld’ location and adventure site, it is underwritten. There is no explanation why the demon shrines are there and what the relationship is between the Goblins and the demon. So, the Game Master is likely going to want to develop that, as well as deciding where the herbs are located.

The second scenario is ‘Lair of Rumej’. A wealthy noble hires the Player Characters to collect monster parts as trophies for his room or a ghost calls out to one of the Player Characters to whom it is related, for release. Either way, this leads the Player Characters into a series of caves at the end of which can be heard singing of the glory of demonic immortality. The Rumej demon is spherical in shape and has eight tentacles, each of which ends with a sucker which contains an eye in. It is also hovers in the air. The ‘Lair of Rumej’ is obviously more straightforward, but does not suffer from that simplicity. In fact, ‘Lair of Rumej’ is easier to use because it is simple and the Game Master does not have to develop any details herself.

The third scenario is ‘Lair of Vekar’. The Player Characters are hired to scout out an old mine to see whether it is safe and is still viable today or simply they fall into a sinkhole! What they find is a former Wolfkin-operated mine, though no real signs of anything worth salvaging or that the mine is viable. However, it is the lair of a Vekar-Demon, bony and humanoid shaped with the soul of a mortal burning in its chest and bat wings either side of its eyeless head. Again, it feels underdeveloped, but not quite as much as Lair of Kavor’.

Rounding out Underworld are three random maps that the Game Master can develop as is her wont, though suggestions are given. There is also a pair of ‘Magic Items & Treasure’ tables that the Game Master can use with the supplement or her campaign in general. They are all good magical items and the Game Master will likely want to flesh them out a bit to make them stand out.

Physically, Underworld is rough and does need an edit. The maps are blocky and not the easiest to use. There are versions for both player and Game Master, but those for the Game Master are not numbered which means that they are not as easy to use from the page as they should be. The artwork for the demons is decent though.

Underworld is a bit rough and ready and in places will require some development upon the part by the Game Master to really flesh the locations out. The demons are decently done and have an entertaining range of attacks—though more for the Game Master than her players—so will surprise both players and characters. Overall, Underworld is something to work with rather than being quite ready to play.

[Free RPG Day 2026] Things Go To Hell

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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One of the perennial contributors to Free RPG Day is Paizo, Inc., a publisher whose titles for both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game have proved popular and often in demand long after the event. The emphasis in these releases have invariably been upon small species. Thus, in past years, the titles released for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game have typically involved adventures with diminutive Player Characters, first Kobolds, then Goblins, and then with the release of A Fistful of Flowers for Free RPG Day 2022 and A Few Flowers More for Free RPG Day 2023, it was Leshies, where as for Free RPG Day 2024, it was the turn of toys with The Great Toy Heist! However, for Free RPG Day 2025, The Scourge of Sheerleaf switched things up by increasing the scale of the adventure and making the villain of the piece even bigger! Although the situation and the villain is very different for Things Go To Hell, the entry for Free RPG Day continues to do things on a bigger scale!

Things Go To Hell is designed for four Seventh Level Player Characters and makes use of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Player Core, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game GM Core, and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Monster Core. Barring the fact that the Player Characters are Seventh Level which means that they are quite complex in terms of what they can do and are capable of, especially the two spellcasters in the pre-generated quartet, the scenario is fairly straightforward, easy to prepare, and easy to run.

The scenario opens with the Player Characters suddenly awakening—a Halfling animating to life after being posed as a statue, the spark of life returning to the eyes of both a berobed automaton and an armed and armoured skeleton, and a human male being spat out of a strangely organic pod—to find that a lot of time has passed since their last memories and that they are still in Fanespire, a foul tower owned by the archmage, Ydris Veloch. All four realise three facts. The first is that Ydris Veloch is dead; the second that each of them was treated as an object by the late wizard; and the third is that the tower is no longer where it was. The latter is confirmed when they look out of the windows at the top of the tower and see a literal hellscape. Working their way down several floors, they encounter what is very obviously a devil. This is Gosterion, a ‘phistophilus’—a contract devil—who is quite happy to chat to the Player Characters. He will also explain the situation. Ydris Veloch had a contract with Dispater in the city of Dis which gave him possession of Fanespire in return for his soul and with his recent death during the Hellfire Crisis, and so he is currently searching the tower for the late wizard’s soul. Worse, since Ydris Veloch considered all four Player Characters to be property and at the time of his death were in the possession of the wizard, they are actually part of the contract that Ydris Veloch had with Hell and thus owned by Hell.

The good thing is that the Player Characters get to argue their case and potentially come to some kind of arrangement. Gosterion will let the Player Characters go if they can find Ydris Veloch’s soul for him. So ideally, the Player Characters will return to searching Fanespire for the soul of its former master. Unfortunately, it is not so much of search as the scenario only has three locations, but it will see the Player Character confront their former gaoler. Then once done, Gosterion will send them home, bearing in mind that the Player Characters will be making a deal with a devil.

The four Player Characters are interesting in their variety. They consist of Hila, a genderless Automaton Cleric and healer for hire who was under contract with Ydris Veloch; Klixi Halfstep, a female Halfling thief who was robbing Fanespire; Tiberius, a male Skeleton Fighter who was the head of Ydris Veloch’s security; and ‘Ydris Veloch’, a male Human Wizard and a clone of Ydris Veloch who regarded him to be a failure. All distrust each other, but given the current circumstances must work together. All four are given a two-page spread each and each includes his background, a guide to playing the character, with notes on whet he will do in combat, exploration, and when healing is required, as well as what he thinks about the other characters. The four Player Characters are very well done and easy to read, and also include references for the various abilities.

Physically, Things Go To Hell is professionally presented. The artwork is excellent and the writing is clear. The map of three of the levels of Fanespire are also decent.

Things Go To Hell has a very likeable set-up which throws four unlikely Player Characters together and forces them to work hand in hand whereas that would be unlikely to happen. Yet after the entertaining interaction with Gosterion and the legal ramifications of the situation that the Player Characters are in, the scenario cuts to a climax with a fight. The fight makes sense, but the Player Characters are not expected to do anything else because all of the rooms on the other floors are shut up. So, the Player Characters never get to explore them and never actually get to look for Ydris Veloch’s soul. There is huge potential here for roleplaying and exploration here, given that one Player Character was the head of the wizard’s security and another was robbing him, but it is ignored in favour of cutting to the chase. All it would have to develop the story and play a little more is two or three smaller encounters in the tower to take advantage of those opportunities. It does not help that each Player Character is given a two page spread which effectively presents more information than is really needed for a short one-shot like Things Go To Hell. If they could have been shortened, then perhaps room could have been made for more scenes and locations.

Ultimately, the set-up to Things Go To Hell is sophisticated and the pre-generated Player Characters in Things Go To Hell are sophisticated, but the plotting and the story potential is unsophisticated. Fortunately, an experienced Game Master should be able to detail two or three floors for the Player Characters to investigate and give the players the opportunity to roleplay and explore the search for Ydris Veloch’s soul more fully.

Danger During Dunkirk

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! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum is a scenario that takes Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 almost all of the way back to to the start of the Secret War. It opens in late May, 1940. The Nazi war machine is driving into France with its radical Blitzkrieg tactics and is retreating back to the Dunkirk on the French north coast, awaiting the beginning of Operation Dynamo and the evacuation from the beaches outside of the port. Alongside this is an effort by Section M to find and evacuate as much occult-related material as it can—tomes, artefacts, and more—before it falls into the hands of either Black Sun or Nachtwölfe. Unfortunately, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the German Luftwaffe has already caught up with Professor Guilbert Paschal, a Section M researcher operating in Normandy and racing to reach Dunkirk when his convoy was destroyed. From its field base in France, Section M sends its agents to investigate the ruins of the convoy, determine the fate of Professor Paschal, and recover his equipment and research. Whatever they are, they could be crucial in understanding Germany’s objectives in the Secret War.

The action begins with the agents of Section M—the Player Characters—roaring up to the site of the convoy’s destruction on British Expeditionary Force provided motorcycles. Time must be of the essence! The agents have time though to investigate the site and gather both clues and left-behind advanced British anti-Mythos technology before following the trail to the nearby ruins of a medieval castle, its towers ablaze with blue flashes of lightning. A contingent of Nachtwölfe troops has got there first though and the agents will need to get past them before climbing to the top of the castle and face another faction in the Secret War. After that, it is time to pack found so far and head home to dear old Blighty and tea and biscuits!

If this sounds a bit short, then that is because it is. Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum is written as a demonstration scenario, one that can be run in an hour and showcase the roleplaying game’s background and 2d20 System mechanics. In terms of background the scenario is simple. There is a mission, it involves the occult, there are Nazis, and there are Mythos entities to face. Which means that at least three of the setting main elements are involved, the others being the other factions in the Secret War and the rivalries between them. If there is an issue here, it is that Nachtwölfe troops have no weapons or items of Blauer Kristall technology which the organisation’s signature.

In terms of the mechanics, the scenario’s three scenes guide the Game Master through the key mechanics that she needs to get her players used to. This starts off with a simple skill roll and the generation and use of Momentum, ways for the Game Master to complicate a scene, combat, the use of Fortune and Truths, and so on. None of it is complex and it is handled in an easy fashion. However, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum is not a quick-start and the Game Master will need to know the rules and have access to them prior to play. That said, the Game Master can run the scenario using the rules in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide and the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, or she can use the rules found in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 Quick-start. The latter is actually a good option, since it includes ‘A Quick Trip to France’. This scenario takes place in June, 1940 and sees the agents return to now occupied France mere weeks after the end of Operation Dynamo. Specifically, near the city of Rouen in Normandy, so potentially where the late Professor Guilbert Paschal was conducting his last mission. Effectively, although designed as a taster to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 and the Secret War, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum works very well as a prequel to the ‘A Quick Trip to France’.

As a demonstration scenario, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum includes four pre-generated agents. They consist of a German journalist and satirist who has fled the Nazis, a French spy/burglar/killer for hire, a French-Canadian female mechanic and bomb-maker, and a female occultist armed with a couple of Yog-Sothothery-style spells. These are decent enough, but could easily be replaced by agents of the players’ own design.

Physically, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum is well presented. The map of the castle is excellent and each of the pre-generated agents is accompanied by a nice illustration.

Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum is a simple affair by design. Since it is a one-hour demonstration scenario, it is not one that a Game Master is going to pick to run for her group when there are plenty of other options available for the roleplaying game, including of course, the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 Quick-start. However, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum comes into its own as a prelude to the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 Quick-start, almost right at the start of of an Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20 campaign.