Screen Shot XIII

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 Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit published by by Modiphius Entertainment for use with Achtung! Cthulhu, the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic in a secret war against the Nazis in World War 2.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit—heralded as ‘Issue No. 3’ in a series on the cover—comes with a four-panel screen and a Gamemaster’s Toolkit booklet that contains tools and advice on running a campaign that enables the Game Master to prepare a scenario or create elements as play proceeds. The Gamemaster’s Screen itself is a handsome four panel affair, sturdy as is standard for the hobby today, but in portrait format rather than landscape. This is not as easy a format to use, plus it does have a much imposing presence at the table. One part of the front replicates the cover to the  Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, but expands left and right to depict the signature characters from Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 escaping from a German schloss as Lovecraftian nasties attempt to impede their progress! It is an exciting, action-packed illustration.

On the inside, working from left to right, tables summarise task Difficulty, Enemy Level, Attribute Bonuses, Complication Range, and Weapon Range. This is followed by narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. On the right-hand side the tables for both Weapon Effects and Weapon Qualities are listed, followed by Conflict Momentum Spends and Item Restrictions. It is all clearly laid out and easy to read and use. However, none of the tables have page references to either the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide or the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide, which have made things just a little easier for the Game Master. Then there is the issue of the narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. Was this the best use of the one-and-a-half panels that these tables take up? Well, no and more so because these tables are reprinted from the Gamemaster’s Toolkit. So no tables for the ‘Challenge Dice Result’, weapons tables, ‘ Spell Complication Range’, ‘Bonus Power’, and ‘Magical Momentum Spends’ from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide or the ‘Secret Weapons of the Secret War’ and ‘Guide to Hazard Stress & Threat Costs’ tables from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide. Although there is probably not the space for all of these tables on the screen, the inclusion of some of them would have been more use than the ones actually included.

On the inside, working from left to right, tables sumarise task Difficulty, Enemy Level, Attribute Bonuses, Complication Range, and Weapon Range. This is followed by narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. On the right-hand side the tables for both Weapon Effects and Weapon Qualities are listed, followed by Conflict Momentum Spends and Item Restrictions. It is all clearly laid out and easy to read and use. However, none of the tables have page references to either the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide or the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide, which have made things just a little easier for the Game Master. Then there is the issue of the narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. Was this the best use of the one-and-a-half panels that these tables take up? Well, no and morse so because these tables are reprinted from the Gamemaster’s Toolkit. So no tables for the ‘Challenge Dice Result’, weapons tables, ‘ Spell Complication Range’, ‘Bonus Power’, and ‘Magical Momentum Spends’ from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide or the ‘Secret Weapons of the Secret War’ and ‘Guide to Hazard Stress & Threat Costs’ tables from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide. Any one of these tables could have been more useful than the ones included.

The Gamemaster’s Toolkit builds on the advice given in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, focusing on the creation of scenarios and campaigns. This begins with possible inspirations, suggestions being as diverse as Band of Brothers and ’Allo! ’Allo!, before looking at possible titles for the Game Master’s scenario and giving prompts aplenty in terms of background, battles, starting parameters and overarching plot concepts, and then options in terms of antagonists and other NPCs. So the rolls begin with a ‘Story Frame’ and an ‘Overarching Plot Concept’. So the Plot Hook and the Draw might be ‘A passing acquaintance’ who ‘Sends a threat’ and the Plot Concept is to ‘Recover or destroy a long lost tome’ to ‘Save the world’. To this, the Game Master can add requirements to fulfil the plot and location, detail NPCs, before setting up the opening scene and developing the plot with further scenes. The ‘Classified’ section goes goals and aims to draw the Player Characters in and then the tables for villains and heroes, and more. There are tables too for Spells and Manuscripts, Rituals, Book and Tomes, and Artefacts. All of this is drawn from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, which the Game Master will need to refer to in order flesh with further details. The tables throughout are accompanied by advice on how to use them, all of decent, if basic advice.

Physically, the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit is well presented. The screen itself is sturdy and easy to use, whilst the Gamemaster’s Toolkit 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 Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit is useful, but it simply is not as useful as it could be. The advice and the tables in the Gamemaster’s Toolkit are undeniably useful, but what makes the supplement as a whole less useful is the inclusion of the tables from the Gamemaster’s Toolkit book on the screen. They can be used in play to add narrative, but there are mechanical and rules tables which could have been included and the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit would have been far more useful.

A Class Collection

The Masterclass Codex is a compilation of compilations. It complies two supplements—A Touch of Class: Seven New Classes for 5th Edition and A Touch More Class: 9 More Classes for 5th Edition—into one volume, both of which compile content from EN5ider, EN Publishing’s Patreon magazine dedicated to supporting Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Together, it compiles a total of sixteen new Classes, from the Alchemist and the Bloodweaver to the Savant and the Tinkerer. In between there are a lot of new spellcasting Classes, though physical Classes are not totally ignored, and a lot of options for the Dungeon Master and player alike. The player, of course, to play, but the Dungeon Master to pick and choose from in terms of what she wants to see in her game world. Thus, a Dungeon Master could take one, two, or more of these Classes and make them particular to her campaign—or parts of her campaign—or she could throw everything into the mix and say have them all come together in a setting like Planescape.

The format of the Classes in The Masterclass Codex follows that of The Player’s Handbook. It opens with an explanation of the class, suggestions for a quick build, features of the class, before delving into the particulars of the class. Added to this is a little fiction to add flavour. Alongside all of this, there are new Feats and spells, monsters, and a whole bit more. This ‘more’ rounds out the entries in the supplement and develops ways in which they can be brought into a game.

The Masterclass Codex opens with the Alchemist. This combines magic with scientific rigour for a spellcaster that throws acid, cold, or fire bombs, and then concocts potions and mixes for its spells. It is not quite clear if the Alchemist is throwing these vials or drinking them. The Alchemist makes Discoveries, which can be Smart Alchemy which allows a bomb to explode and target only hostile targets, Extend Potion to double its duration, Potion of Rejuvenation to restore a spell slot, and Spontaneous Recovery to amplify his healing without a short rest. Advanced Sciences are the Alchemist’s specialities and include the Sciences of Creation, Destruction, Illumination, Mutation, and Regeneration. These respectively enable the Alchemist to craft a homunculus out of clay and remould it as a servant and combatant; to enhance his bombs; to temporarily enhance mental attributes and gain mental spells; to physically enhance the body though a cost to Intelligence, though this cannot be repeated too often, lest the Alchemist poison himself; and to enhance healing and even gain resurrection! To this, ‘Scientific Sorcery’ gives the Alchemist’s Apprentice Background, new items, and even Feats like the Alchemical Artillerist, making him better at throwing alchemical weapons, and Pernicious Poisoner, to faster produce poisons.

There are a lot of interesting options here, but some step on the toes of other Classes. The Science of Mutation pushes the Alchemist towards the Barbarian Class, whilst the Science of Regeneration leans towards the Cleric Class. Other aspects feel underdeveloped, like the Pernicious Poisoner Feat. It is great for creating poisons, but not using them. What about adding their use to the bomb-throwing ability of the Class, so what you have is a battlefield poisoner? Combine that with Smart Alchemy and you have targeted poison bombs—nasty! Lastly, if this Class is supposed to be about adding science to magic, what about being able to identify potions and poisons?

The Cardcaster draws on the Tarot deck to cast spells, and actually requires a player to have one in order to determine what spells his character can cast. For example, a First Level Cardcaster has a hand size of two and draws two of the Major Arcana. The Fool gives the options Detect Poison and Disease, Expeditious Retreat, Hideous Laughter, and Mage Armour, whilst The Magician lists Burning Hands, Create/Destroy Water, Detect Magic, Floating Disc, Unseen Image, or Silent Image. The Cardcaster selects the spell and expends the card. In game, the Cardcaster can also throw cards to inflict magical slashing damage. In terms of development, the Cardcaster focuses on particular arcana, the Knight of Swords turning the Cardcaster into a sword-wielding spellcaster; Page of Wands gives greater command of the user’s Tarot deck; the Queen of Cups lets the user spread her love by supporting others; King of Pentacles makes the Cardcaster richer; and Jack of Beasts has the caster summon and control beasts. Not all of these are necessarily adventure options, the Queen of Cups and King of Pentacles feel like they suited to campaigns where adventuring rarely done, and the Jack of Beasts is an oddity that does not fit the tarot. Overall, the Class would be interesting play, adding a physicality and uncertainty with its card-drawing aspect.

The Diabolist is an Evil Class enters into dark pacts with devils and possibly demons. It is accompanied by range new types of both like the Accuser Devil or the Coloxus, and includes the feat Voodoo, which raises its own issues in tying an aspect of a real-world religion into an evil Class like the Diabolist. The Diabolist is suited to certain campaigns or in general as an NPC Class, and even then, perhaps it could have been presented as a variant of the Warlock Class which fundamentally is very similar. The Feywalker draws from the powers of the Fey realms to become a chaotic, even whimsical, combatants that flit around the battlefield, gaining a fey companion and fey charm, and binding his soul to the fey through either the Sphere of Beasts, Sphere of Plants, or Sphere of Entropy. Of these Spheres, the first two step into similar areas to that of the Druid Class, whilst the third plays up the randomness of chaos. Ultimately though, this is a fighter best at home in the forest, embracing its mysteries. The Morph Class is a shapechanger, connected to either nature or the fey, either specialising in infiltration and deception as a Doppelganger, raw animal power and presence in Primordial Beast, the scoundrel’s antics of the Trickster. Again, it feels a little like the Druid, one who has specialised in shapechanging, yet at the same time wondering whether Primordial Beast would better fit the Druid and the Trickster the Feywalker.

If the Alchemist is one of the Classes that stands out in The Masterclass Codex, the other is the Noble. Like its Warlord counterpart from Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, the Noble is all about supporting his allies. The Noble can offer a rallying word for an ally to recover Hit Points direct them to take an action on his turn. The Noble either follows the Path of the Brave to become a better warrior; the Path of the Heart to beguile others with his innocence, though this comes at the cost of martial abilities; the Path of the Mystic Royal to combine spellcasting and command of others; and the Path of the Tactician to further direct and command the actions of his allies. This is very nicely done Class overall, perhaps best suited to larger groups where the Noble has the room to stand to the side offering advice and actions. Of the four subclasses, the Path of the Heart really stands out for its roleplaying potential as everyone around such a Noble works to keep her alive whilst benefiting from her advice and actions. Throw in a few scoundrel-like Classes alongside the Noble and it could be a lot of fun.

The Occultist stands out as the oddity in The Masterclass Codex, because it is not a Class that specialises in the occult per se, although it does bring an element of horror into play. Instead, it is a transformative Class in that Occultist delves into dark lore or suffers from a tainted family bloodline that will turn him into a supernatural beast or monster of some kind. These are represented by multiple paths. These are the Abomination, more Mister Hyde than Doctor Jekyll; the cosmic power of the Horror; the dark energies of the Nightmare; the primal acidity of the Ooze; and the classic powers of the Vampire and the Werecreature. Of these, the Path of the Ooze is the most original. The Class as such feels more suited to either NPC use or a horror-focused campaign or setting.

If the Occultist brings the macabre to The Masterclass Codex, the Bloodweaver uses his abilities to control blood to empower himself and affect others. The Traditions of the Class enable the healing of the Bloodweaver and his allies with Bloodbinder; to curse, cripple, and kill with Crimson Witch; and even to turn the Bloodweaver’s own blood into weapons as a Scarlet Reaper. This is in addition to Disciplines, such as Blood Reach which turns the Bloodweaver’s fingernails into hard-as-steel (surely iron would have been better?), ten-foot-long talons, or Taint Blood, poisoning a target’s blood! The Class lists multiple Disciples, all of which require the expenditure of points from the Player Character’s Sanguine Reservoir. Some of these Disciplines and abilities do require the Bloodweaver to suffer damage as well as expend point from the Sanguine Reservoir. The Bloodweaver is an enjoyably horrible Class, being more akin to a blood-themed superhero—or rather anti-superhero—than necessarily a classic Dungeons & Dragons-style Player Character.

The superhero feel continues with the luck-based Fatebender. Where the Bloodweaver has points from his Sanguine Reservoir, the Fatebender has, of course, Fate Points. They can be expended to have something improbable happen nearby or force someone nearby (including himself) to reroll an attack, ability check, or saving throw. The Destined Prospects for the Class include Mascot who radiates good luck around him to his allies and benefits from their good fortune in return; the Jinx instead radiates bad luck to his enemies and benefits from their misfortune in return—including ‘Under a Ladder’ and ‘Wardrobe Malfunction’; and Weaver lets him change fate around him. The latter is not as fun or entertaining as Jinx, and with both Mascot and Jinx, there is something of the swashbuckler to the Class.

If the Occultist was the oddity from A Touch of Class: Seven New Classes for 5th Edition, then the Gemini is the oddity from A Touch More Class: 9 More Classes for 5th Edition. As the name suggests, the Class is all about twins and doubles, and thematically, it has Balances between the two rather than disciplines or paths. The Atavist plays with age, balancing between young and old; Equalist between mind and body, one embodying the former, the latter the other, and this changes every day; and the Reluctant Hero between fear and fearlessness. Roleplaying wise, this has possibilities, but it forces a player to roleplay two characters rather one and that complicates things. The Geomancer draws from the five Chinese elements—earth, fire, metal, water, and wood—and follows one four different Orders. These are Order of the Apothecary, Order of the Architect, Order of the Conqueror, and Order of the Rune Knight. They are respectively, healers, builders—civil servants and city planners are suggested, seekers of peace through conflict, and mighty warriors. The Geomancer is underwritten and of the subclasses, the Order of the Apothecary and Order of the Architect just about fit, whereas the others do not quite.

The Gunfighter lets the Dungeon Master and her players bring firearms into the game. It has its particular Fighting Styles—Archery, Carbineer (gunfighting from horseback), Harquebusier (using hand cannons!), Matchlock Mobility, Point-Black Shooter, and Sharp Aim—though Archery is the odd one out here. The Codes of the Gun are Bushwhacker, for the Player Character who prefers to ambush his targets; Drifter, for the famous or infamous travelling gunfighter; and Maverick, which brings magical gun tricks to the battlefield. Annoyingly, there are no rules for actually using guns to accompany the Class, a major omission. Otherwise, this is a sold Class inspired by Westerns, but mapped back onto earlier firearms.

The Lodestar begins play with a broken soul, but able to coalesce those pieces of broken soul into physical magical spheres that the Lodestar has to constantly keep tethered to his soul. As tethered as they are, the Lodestar can fling them at an enemy to inflict damage, use them to block attacks, and more. Training method include Control, which grants fine manipulation of the spheres; Imaginative to enhance the Lodestar’s artistic capability and imagination as well as the Lodestar’s form; and Instinct in which the spheres become part of Lodestar’s training and combat regimen. The Class feels inspired by the Ioun stones of Dungeons & Dragons, but then turned into an odd sort of martial artist. Overall, it does not really come together in a way that is enticing to play.

The Monster Tamer offers different ways to capture and train pets. The Class adheres three different Regimens. The Animalist has respect for animals and his pet to enhance it; the Monstrous finds kinship with monsters rather than beasts; the Oddball is drawn to the weirder creatures, like the Gelatinous Cube or the Otyugh! The Monster Tamer also teaches his pets tricks, including attacks, using the features of the creature, and even unnatural behaviour! The choice of tamed monster can be really powerful, backed up with a surprisingly high number of Hit Points for the Class.

Inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, the Savant is a Class with the Aptitudes of Adversary, which is all about manoeuvring the enemy into danger; the Chirurgeon and its focus on healing; and the Co-ordinator, who uses knowledge to aid others on the battlefield and make deductions about others. The third of these then, combines elements of the Noble with classic detective, whilst the first is a fighter variant. These are backed up with Tricks which distract or direct opponents across the battlefield. Inspired, of course, by Sherlock Holmes and similar figures with genius levels of observation and deduction, there is lots of roleplaying potential in the Class, even if, ultimately the Aptitudes slightly underwhelm as choices.

Lastly, the Tinkerer brings the gadgeteer to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The Tinkerer—not necessarily a Gnome, of course—craft ‘Affect-Engines’ that consume mystical power and transform into elemental energy, either cold, flame, or lightning, which can be spat out for various effects. One issue is that upon first glance, the Class cannot do anything really interesting until its gets to Second Level. This is not quite the case, as the Tinkerer can build items, which require an Affect-Engine, for example, a hand-rocket or a power-tool. Once a Tinkerer acquires a few Levels and the ability to have more than one Affect-Engine in play, he can construct more powerful items and items which a few more options in their use. All this is really only obvious in looking at the list of example items at the end of the Class description, so only then does the Tinkerer not look as underpowered at First Level. That said, the creation of these devices does not money as well as a bit of time.

Once the Tinkerer is Second Level, he can cast spells and can attack an Affect-Engine to a weapon or object to add its elemental effect, including inflicting extra damage by expending a spell slot. The Tinkerer focuses on one of three Fields of Study. The Bombardier turns his Affect-Engines into artillery pieces; the Mechanic over engineers his Affect-Engine to improve its efficiency; and the Steam Knight turns the heavy armour worn by the Tinkerer into power armour! Overall, this looks like a fun Class to play around with and if there was a suitable Steampunk setting, this would make a suitable addition.

In addition to the extra demons and devils for the Diabolist Class and backgrounds for the Alchemist, The Masterclass Codex adds ‘Tailored Magic Items’ that a Player Character of a particular Class gets better at using. For example, the Diabolist’s Whip increases that Class’s ability to conjure demons and devils and gains bonuses to both attack and damage, but later inflicts extra necrotic damage. There are items listed for both the supplement’s new Classes and the standard ones in the Player’s Handbook.

Physically, The Masterclass Codex is very much two books in one—A Touch of Class: Seven New Classes for 5th Edition and A Touch More Class: 9 More Classes for 5th Edition—with one having a red trade dress and the other a green trade dress. The layout is clean and tidy, and everything is very accessible, especially with its larger typeface. The artwork, some of it publicly available images, is variable in its quality. Overall, it is and it does feel very much a like a compilation.

Ultimately, The Masterclass Codex is what you might call a Marmite book, Marmite soft, dark brown foodstuff that is so salty-tasting—without actually containing any salt—that it divides most people into two groups. They either love it or they loath it. So it is with The Masterclass Codex, and not once, but twice. People are going to either love it or loathe it because it is written for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and then people are going to either love it or loathe it because they like or dislike one, two, or more of the Classes in its pages. For those that dislike it, for either reason, The Masterclass Codex is book to avoid, though there is nothing to stop a Game Master from taking any one of the Classes in its pages and stripping it down to adapt to the Dungeons & Dragons-style game of her choice. On the other hand, there is a lot to like in the pages of The Masterclass Codex. The sixteen Classes are interesting and will add both a different flavour and a different style of play to a game, as well as presenting challenges in terms of getting used to how they play. Their inclusion both adds to the play of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and to the Dungeon Master’s campaign world. The Gun Fighter adds firearms and so they exist in the world, the Occultist suggests a horror element, perhaps similar to that of Ravenloft, and the Noble adds a sense of command and control and so on. The Noble is the one Class that will make it to play, particularly if a group is missing the Warlord from Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition.

The Masterclass Codex is not a book that every Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition group or Dungeon Master is going to want or need. Its contents are, after all, optional. However, as a set of options, having them on the shelf is no bad thing. They are a set of new play options to try out, a set of new play options around which to build a world.

—oOo—

En Publishing will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Deadly Dinners

A woman sits at the dining table, the meal ready before her, a housewife and siren awaiting the arrival of her husband home, working late, or is he? Lovers, one poisoning the other to keep them even as they stray. Siblings, monsters all, confined by their father’s love and control until they have had enough and decided to ensure their escape by eating him. A nuclear family of loving cannibals whose predations have become too much and as the police closes in, enjoy one last meal of each other. A New Year’s Eve party at the end of 1999 when the world might end at the stroke of midnight and the ball drops, whilst visions of an alternate present haunt the party-goers. Mealtimes—dinner especially—can be times to celebrate, but sometimes they are performances of tension and despair, each course serving up another dish and another act that ratchets up the tension until it becomes unbearable and someone snaps. Seething. Shouting. Screaming. Raging. Worse. Thankfully, these are not scenes of everyday domestic distress, but of set-ups for—and from—the Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous.

Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is an anthology of American freeform live action horror roleplaying games that use the themes of food and consumption to explore horror in suburban environments. Published by Pelgrane Press—better known for Trail of Cthulhu and 13th Age and similar roleplaying games—following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is written and designed by Banana Chan and Sadia Bies, and contains a total of fourteen ‘Live Action Role Playing’ games or LARPs. These are not the traditional fantasy LARPS with multiple participants wielding foam weapons, but much smaller, more intimate affairs, that emphasise drama and tension. This is done via the set-up and then through character design and prompts. The players are free to interpret these prompts within the play, but these LARPS are designed to tell a particular story even if the outcome will vary from one playthrough to the next. The format and style is influenced by the Nordic style, but the fourteen here are classified as American freeform LARPS. All fourteen though, are reminiscent of murder mystery parties, each twisted into their own American horror story.

Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous opens with a short explanation of what LARPS, before delving into a discussion of calibration tools and setting expectations, essentially safety tools. Some of these are particular to LARPS, like ‘Tap and Scratch’, tap being used to indicate that a player wants to step out of a scene, ‘scratch’ to indicate that a player is enjoying a scene. Others, such as ‘Lines and Veils’ and the ‘X-Card’ will be familiar to standard tabletop roleplaying games. There are notes too on expectations for solo play, since some of the LARPs in the anthology are designed for one, and the experience of play can be made all the more intense because of the solitary situation. There is advice too for how to handle the debriefing following a solo LARP, necessary because being designed for one, there is no scope for post-play discussion with others as there is in a standard LARP with more participants.

The fourteen LARPs in Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous range widely in terms of length and number of participants. From one to as many as eight players, and from under an hour to no more than three. All follow the same format. This includes, obviously, the playing time and the number of players, but to this are listed content warnings, tone and media touchstones—inspirational reading and watching, calibration tools—safety tools to be observed for the particular LARP, and items needed. The latter typically begin with a dinner meal and a table, and can be as simple as print-outs of the LARP’s prompt cards and a mannequin, or as complex as an unusual ingredient, a washcloth, a bathtub, a cup of water, a coin, and a pair of pyjamas. Others require video recordings, particular room types, and more. Following some background there is always a guide to how the LARP will work, but beyond that, each of the LARPs will vary. Many include character and prompt cards that are required in order to play.

Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous opens with ‘A Housewife in Her Twenties’, a solo affair in which a housewife—who happens to be a siren—who goes through the steps of preparing to have her husband come home from work. Doing her make-up, dressing, and preparing and cooking the evening meal, before sitting down to eat—and all this is actually doing those things rather than describing acting them out as you would in a roleplaying game. Throughout there are prompts and questions as to how you react, and there is potential here for transgression, and it is intentionally designed to scritch and scratch and needle, both physically and emotionally. Similarly, ‘TV Dinner’ is very personal as the player, living alone, enjoys a takeout meal, and suddenly realises that someone in the television series he is watching is talking to him. This explores loneliness and what might change as a result of the interaction. All three of the solo LARPs here have the feel more of solo journalling games, although the LARP aspect calls for a physicality that most journalling games do not.

‘My Love, A Poison’ is designed for two players. It is about a relationship that is about to founder, one poisoning the other after discovering their infidelity. It is intimate, consensually so, the player poisoner lacing the victim’s food with an unusual flavour. There is no reveal in the sense that the poisoned participant is caught unaware, both players knowing from the starter who is the poisoner and the poisoned. ‘Goodbye Father’ is not dissimilar. It is for three players, all taking the roles of monstrous siblings who want to escape the constraints their father has placed on their lives and have jointly decided to kill and consume him. The tension and horror of knowing what is coming is ratchetted up by much of the play being done in silence, communication being done via notes or even texts, except when Father speaks, and ultimately when he is dead and they escape. Then they freely find their voices… ‘Love and Betrayal’ begins with three of its protagonists waking up to encounter a Personal Assistant hurrying to get them to rehearsals for scenes from a soap opera. As they do so, the Personal Assistant interrupts with notes from the ‘Director’ on how he wants them to perform, stuck to their scripts becoming increasingly revelatory with secrets about themselves rather than their characters in the soap opera. It is short and direct and very quickly the players will learn that their characters are in a seriously perilous situation. For more players—as many as six—is ‘What Lies Beneath’ is another family affair, which begins on a sombre note. One of their number, the youngest, recently died, and there are revelations about his death to be made by each of the other members of the family. The LARP requires a fair bit of set-up in terms of questions, both as a group and a player. There is a lot in this LARP that is unspoken, and that includes quite literally the ‘Unspoken’, an unacknowledged presence that literally lurks under the table. The ‘Unspoken’ is almost the LARP’s director, using certain actions to indicate that someone is lying, when to reveal secrets, and ultimately to replace one of the family. It is weird and requires quite a lot upon the part of the person playing the ‘Unspoken’.

Physically, Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is a lovely book. It is well written, with clear and careful instructions and advice. The artwork is a colourful range of the weird and the disturbing, each piece pointing to the horrors to come in the LARPs that follow. Thankfully, the tooth motif on the dust jacket does not follow through into the pages of the anthology.

Inspired by films such as Get Out and Hereditary, television series like Hannibal and Sharp Objects, the French folk tale Bluebeard, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play No Exit, Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is a demanding set of horrifying situations, fraught with emotion and tension that preys upon the participants, whilst asking a lot of them in terms of commitment. Players new to LARPS, even mature players—which is what the anthology demands—may find that too much, even with the excellent advice on safety tools and running each one. Nevertheless, they likely benefit from the presence and guidance of more experienced players. Who, of course, will find a great deal to engage with and run here. In terms of physical set-up and commitment, the contents of Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous are less demanding, because they are all designed to be run at home.

Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is an excellent anthology of LARPs that brings the horror of the family and its relationships to the perfect venue—at the dinner table—and keeps it at home.

—oOo—

Pelgrane Press will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Solitaire: Numb3r Stations

Throughout the Cold War and even today, secret messages were broadcast across international borders and around the world, enabling instructions to be passed from handlers to their agents in the field. The means were Number Stations, shortwave radio stations which broadcast formatted numbers, often vocalised, but also broadcast as music or in Morse Code. Perhaps one of the most famous is the ‘LincolnshirePoacher’, which broadcast bars from the English folk song ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’. These Number Stations and the messages they broadcast form the basis for Numb3r Stations – A Solo RPG. Published by LunarShadow Designs and available in print here, the reader and player takes on the role of a spy posted to a foreign country where he will undertake an important mission. Tuning in to regular broadcasts, he will receive instructions and updates and in turn pass back news of the mission’s progress and what he has learned so far. However, successfully or spectacularly completing each stage of the mission has a price—it brings the activities of our patriotic spy to the attention of counter-intelligence operations in the country he is spying upon. Ultimately, if the spy is too successful, counter-intelligence will identify him as a spy and arrest him. This is espionage in the style of John le Carré and George Smiley rather than Ian Fleming and James Bond.

Solo roleplaying games and journalling games are built around prompts, typically generated in random fashion either through rolling dice or drawing cards from a standard deck of playing cards. Using those prompts, the player typically creates and resolves a scene or encounter, and then writes it down in his journal. Numb3r Stations also uses prompts, but instead of using neutral mechanical means of generating them, it uses prompts that are both random and highly thematic. In other words, it uses the Number Stations and their broadcasts as prompts. During the Cold War, an agent would listen to the designated number station for the code being broadcast and use it to decode a message on a one-time-pad. In Numb3r Stations, the player is doing exactly the same, if not to commit acts of espionage himself, then to tell the story of the agent and his mission. Nevertheless, there is a sense of vicarious subterfuge to Numb3r Stations, as the player listens in, knowing that someone else once did the same on some secret mission far away from his home, or even could be on a secret mission right now, depending upon which number station the player decides to listen to and use for the source of his prompts.

To play Numb3r Stations, the player requires pen and paper and ideally, access to Priyom.org. This site provide numerous number stations to listen to and all the player has to do is select one to generate a random three-digit code. This is his prompt. Alternative methods of generating this number are also suggested, but for real immersion, the authors suggest using the same number station, such as E11, even if that means listening in at the same time of day to hear its broadcast. Numb3r Stations is played out over five stages—Infiltration, Mission: Objective, Mission: Recon, Mission: Execution, and Exfiltration. At each stage, the player uses a three-digit code to select a one-time-pad from the ten in the back of Numb3r Stations and from this a combination of a letter and a number. The entry on that one-time-pad is then crossed out. The letter indicates the prompt for that stage of the mission and the number the Success Rating. There are five prompts per stage, from A to E and the Success Rating ranges from ‘1’ and “You have failed this stage of your mission so poorly, adversary counterintelligence don’t even know something happened” to ‘5’ and “Outstanding work, among the best your organization has seen. All eyes are on you now, mostly unwelcome.”.

Using both Prompt and Success Rating, the player writes a report to his handler. This report must include a code. There are ten given in Numb3r Stations, such as “Your report must contain a secret message that is composed of every 5th word in the message.” or “Include a list within the text, of exactly five items, listed in alphabetical order.”

Lastly, the player determines his Exposure Level based on the Success Rating. If it is too high, his messages have been Intercepted by Counter-Intelligence and his progress is easier to tracked. If he is Intercepted twice, or if a three-digit code indicates an entry on a one-time-pad that has already been used and crossed out, player is captured by counter-intelligence. This is alternative to the fifth and last challenge and gives the player a chance to write one last two-hundred-and-forty-character message to his loved ones. (In other words, a tweet!) If the player or agent completes his mission, his final Exposure Level determines handler’s or even history’s verdict on the mission.

Physically, Numb3r Stations – A Solo RPG is a rather grey, dreary little book. However, that actually feels thematically appropriate, matching the often-drab nature of espionage during the Cold War. The cover is decent though, depicting a man in fedora hat and trench coat and carrying a briefcase. Wholly unremarkable, he could be a travelling salesman, a businessman, or even a spy! The book is otherwise decently written, but in places a close study is required to understand what a player is required to do.

Numb3r Stations – A Solo RPG is at its heart, a writing exercise in five stages. At each stage, the player will be given a prompt as a subject matter, and both a degree of success and a code which will influence and complicate what the player has to write. Even overcomplicate what a player has to write if he is intercepted! Numb3r Stations – A Solo RPG is a delightfully drab espionage roleplaying game, capturing the fraught, grey no-man’s land feel of the Cold War, beginning in thematic fashion by listening into messages from a bygone age before being prompted to draft dreary report after dreary report!

Clouting Cthulhu II

As a darkness falls over a Europe under the heel of the Nazi jackboot, a secret war has begun against the invader, one which at the direction of Winston Churchill, Prime Minster of Great Britain, would “…[S]et Europe ablaze.” This would be led by the Special Operations Executive or SOE, whose operatives, often working with local resistance forces, would carry out acts of sabotage against the Axis war effort, as well as work to establish secret armies which ultimately act in conjunction with Allied invading forces. However, there is a darker, more secret war, this against those Nazi agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. Yet even this dark drive 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… Standing against them, ready to thwart their malign efforts are the audacious Allied agents of Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance, 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!

This is the set-up for Achtung! Cthulhu, the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. Originally published using Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition and Savage Worlds in 2013, and later FATE Core, almost a decade on, it returns in brand new edition. Not though written for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but rather for use with the publisher’s 2d20 System house mechanics, first seen in Mutant Chronicles and Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. The result is a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative action in which the Player Characters can take the fight to the enemy, punch out the Nazis, and wield powerful sorcery or psychic powers against their agents and their Mythos allies, as well as even weirder weapons against the backdrop of World War II and the Nazi war machine.

The Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide—heralded as ‘Issue No. 2’ in a series on the cover—picks up where the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide left off. Written for the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 Game Master’s eyes only, this is the supplement exposes and explores a whole lot more of the setting and its secrets, presents the six major factions involved in the new Secret War, their personnel minor, major, and notable, the equipment they field, and the magics they wield. Alongside this, there is extensive advice and suggestions for the Game Master on how to run Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 and keep it exciting. Fundamentally, the latter is what sets Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 apart from other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. It is meant to be fast and furious, exciting and unnerving, the tone and style hewing heavily into Pulp action. The Player Characters are not so much Investigators—although some investigation is likely to be required in game—but rather Pulp action, anti-Mythos special forces operatives or secret agents. This can be on an ad hoc basis, with the Player Characters coming from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, which is very likely to be the default set-up in a campaign, but it could also be run a military Pulp action horror game with the Player Characters all being part of the same unit. For example, Section M fields The Grey Watch, a band of Scottish warriors specialising in hand-to-hand combat, always accompanied by a piper playing the Pipes of McMurden, the sound of which strikes fear into the forces of the Mythos, whilst Majestic sends out its Flaming Salamanders of the Majestic Corps, consisting of U.S. marines in flame retardant clothing wielding all manner of flame-based weapons to burn out the Mythos. The action-packed cover of the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide very much sets the tone for the roleplaying game, as does the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide.

The Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide begins by exploring the factions and history of Secret War, and this not merely divided between the Allies and the Nazis. There are instead six factions, and to extent, this does feel like a set of factions for both roleplaying and wargaming, something that the extensive set of stats for allies, enemies, and forces in the later ‘Heroes & Villains of the Secret War’ and ‘Bestiary’ does nothing to persuade otherwise. On the Allied side are the British Section M and the American Majestic. Both capture the flavour and feel of their respective mundane counterparts, playing to some stereotypes too in keeping with the roleplaying game’s Pulp leanings. Thus, Section M is reserved, but combines desperate ingenuity and improvisation with measured study and cups of tea, whilst Majestic is brasher, more muscular, and relies on psychic operations rather than the classical study of magic. On the Nazi side are two factions, The Cult of the Black Sun and Nachtwölfe, which have different approaches to the Mythos and despise each other. Black Sun uses Hyperborean magics and knowledge to work back and forth between the Dreamlands and the waking world in an effort to free Yog-Sothoth. Nachtwölfe employs Atlantean superscience to develop, arm, and field an array of fantastic new weapons, armoured fighting vehicles, and more. In addition, both the Mi-Go and the Deep Ones have been drawn into the war, sometimes allies of the Nazis, sometimes not, as both have their own agendas. The backgrounds, histories, military structures, bases, missions and goals are all given for the six factions in what is an excellent overview of the Secret War. There is a timeline too, running from 1939 to 1945, noting important events throughout the Secret War, and hinting at potential scenarios which the Game Master could purchase and run for her players, but notably still leaving plenty of room into which the Game Master can insert her own adventures.

The Game Master can arm and equip her Player Characters and NPCs with a vast array of strange and wonderful weapons and devices. For example, the elite snipers of the Bronze Berets use the Beowulf Monstr Slayer Kk. 1 Sniper Rifle, a magnetic propulsion weapon sometimes combined with Elder Sign-inscribed rounds, whilst the Blevins Steam-Assisted Enzymatic Weapons which fire gouts of superheated steam and high-temperature active enzymes which dissolve the physical make-up of some trans-dimensional creatures. There are more mundane—in comparison—items too—like the Sword-Cane or the Bolas (until that is, the weights are filled with explosives!), and in general, such devices and weapons are rare and the ammunition, where required, available in limited quantities. In comparison, the Nazis of both Black Sun and Nachtwölfe have much wider range of weapons and equipment, and it is more widely manufactured, especially the technologically-focused Nachtwölfe. For example, Wotan’s Staff-Spear or ‘Grungnir’, are tipped with black steel forged in the Dreamlands and aid in the casting of Mythos magic, whilst the Anddrsserher-Helm worn by some Nachtwölfe soldiers is bulky, but contains a set of lenses—based on the Cornwallis design stolen from New World Incorporated in a nice nod to the classic Call of Cthulhu campaign, The Fungi from Yuggoth or The Day of the beast—that provides magnified vision, infrared vision, and the ability to see creatures and things that the human eye is normally incapable of seeing. Weapons and devices of both the Mi-Go and the Deep Ones are also given. 

Besides technology, all sides field magic during the Secret War, although reluctantly in the case of the Allies. In the main they restrict themselves to studying and using magics, spells, and rituals from the Celtic and Runic or Norse traditions, as well as Psychic powers, rather than the Mythos magic. Psychic powers are themselves treated as a sort of magic, but a very modern one, and all three traditions are more fully detailed in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide. The Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide instead focuses on Mythos magic, including both its battlefield and ritual applications. These are akin to the classic magics of traditional Lovecraftian investigative horror, but classified according to the deity they relate to—Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, and Yog-Sothoth. These are likely to be used by the Deep One and Mi-Go factions and to limited extent, if at all, by the other factions. They are accompanied by numerous rituals, some of which like the Dust of Ibn-Ghazi and the various versions of Evoke/Dismiss Deity will be familiar from other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, whilst the Pulp nature of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 is highlighted by the inclusion of healing magic—for both the body and the mind. Similarly, the list of Mythos tomes is a mix of the old and the new.

For the Game Master there is an extensive chapter of advice and suggestions as to how to run Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20. It covers her role and responsibilities, letting the players and their characters be awesome, how to handle both Threats and the action, and so on before delving in the mechanics of the 2D20 System explained in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide, but here from the Game Master’s perspective. It pays particular attention to handling Truths in play and the consequences of failure. The Momentum and Threat economy are also examined again, and there is advice on creating and handling memorable NPCs too.

This last piece of advice leads into the last two chapters of the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, which together take some forty percent of the book. First, ‘Heroes & Villains of the Secret War’ looks first at the British and American forces, and covers both standard troops and special forces, the latter including those involved in the Secret War, like the Scared Blades: Gopal’s Ghurkhas from Nepal and the Pathfinder Demin Hunters from the First Nation Tlingit peoples. It does a similar thing for Black Sun and Nachtwölfe, as well as the Resistance operating in occupied Europe. Included too are all of the major figures in each of the different actions, whether that is Sally Armitage of Majestic or Mina Wolff of Nachtwölfe. Each is rated as either Trooper, Lieutenant, or Nemesis level NPC, depending upon their individual degree of threat and involvement in Secret War. Second, the ‘Bestiary’ does a similar thing for the Mythos. It includes ordinary beasts too, plus the creations of abhorrent science, but in the main presents the various creatures, entities, and gods of the Mythos. Ranging from Colours Out of Space and Ghouls all the way up to Azathoth, Hastur, and Shub-Niaggurath, the things of the Mythos are classified along similar lines and detailed under the 2D20 System. There is a handful of the unfamiliar thrown into the mix to add some unfamiliarity too, but whilst a great many of the entries are familiar, at least conceptually, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 gives them, if not a greater degree of agency, then a greater degree of active and more immediate agency. There is very much a sense in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 of the Mythos factions not being prepared to play the long game as is traditional both in Mythos fiction and Lovecraftian investigative horror, but preferring to play a more active, if still secret, role in the affairs of men, whether that is as allies or as enemies, and so taking advantage of the chaos and acceleration of change that comes with the war between the Allies and the Nazis.

So the question is, what is missing from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide? Really, only the two aspects of the game. Vehicles, both Allied and Nazi, are not included despite all the various troops are, though they are instead given in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide. What is missing is a feature of almost every roleplaying game of Lovercraftian investigative horror and that is Sanity and insanity. Being a decidedly pulpier, more action-orientated, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 instead has a Player Character potentially suffer insanity once he has suffered enough mental damage to defeat him, whether from encountering a Mythos monster or reading a Mythos tome. and remove him from the combat and then taken more. This shifts the danger of losing Sanity and suffering from insanity as to more of an afterthought than perhaps a constant worry, but it could have been addressed more clearly. Especially for the Game Master or player adapting from another roleplaying game of Lovercraftian investigative horror.

Physically, the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Game Masters Guide is well presented. It does need an edit in places, but it is well written, and again, like the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide before it, the book’s full colour artwork is fantastic. Much of it has been seen in the previous iteration of Achtung! Cthulhu, but the new artwork in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Game Master’s Guide is really good, capturing the action, excitement, and horror of the war against the darkest forces of the Axis powers.

In its treatment of magic, the monsters of the Mythos, and emphasis upon action, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 is not a game for the player or Keeper who prefers the classic play style of a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror. For the player and the Game Master who want to emphasis a Pulpier, more action-driven, and less horrific approach to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 is a great choice, and the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Game Masters Guide ably supports this style and tone with the engaging background of the Secret War, a wide array of foes to challenge the Player Characters, and the means for them to fight back and keep humanity safe.

—oOo—

Both Reviews from R’lyeh and Modiphius Entertainment will be at DragonMeet on Saturday, 3rd December, 2022.

It's Doom O'Clock!

Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown is a fast-playing, dramatic, and generic horror roleplaying game. Want to play a scenario of teenagers camping out at Lake Blood being stalked by a masked slasher? Inhabitants of a small town caught up in a zombie outbreak? A race through Transylvania being harried by vampires? Villagers oppressed by a demonic cult operating out of the nearby castle in medieval Italy? A rescue team dropping onto a colony in the far future and discovering it to be infested by strange aliens? Townsfolk stalked by werewolves and a witchfinder in seventeenth century England? Investigators making enquiries in a New England seaside resort rumoured to be home to a fish cult? Published by Parable Games, Shiver can do all of these and more. The roleplaying game combines simple, thematic mechanics built around archetypal characters and a simple propriety dice mechanic, combined with a Doom Clock which escalates the tension and a wide selection of classic, nasty monsters that really know how to hit back.

A Player Character in Shiver is defined by an Archetype, six Core Skills, one or more Abilities, and a Fear. There are seven Archetypes—the Warrior, the Maverick, the Scholar, the Socialite, the Fool, the Weird, and the Survivor—and each emphasises one of the six Core Skills and provides three Paths, each of which provides ten Tiers of Abilities as the character gains experience and goes up a Character Level. For example, the Maverick’s Paths are the Thief, the Assassin, and the Ranger. The Tier One Ability for all Mavericks is Dodge, but the Tier Two Ability for the Thief is Sneaky, for the Assassin, Sneak Attack, and for the Ranger, Covering Fire. An option is given that when a Player Character reaches Tier Five, he can either carry on in his own Archetype or switch to another one altogether and become a Hybrid, though this also means that he has a Fatal Flaw as a troubled character.

The six Core Skills—effectively both skills and attributes—are Grit, Wit, Smarts, Heart, Luck, and Strange. Grit represents a character’s physical capabilities; Wit covers physical dexterity; Smarts is his intellect and capability with investigation and technology; Heart is his charisma and charm; Luck is his good fortune and the random of the universe; and Strange is his capacity for using magic, psychic powers, and so on. Of the Archetypes, the Fool relies upon Luck rather than a specific Core Skill; the Weird is the strange individual who might follow the Eldritch, Spiritualist, Psionic, or Body Horror Path; and Survivor is a generalist who might follow the Chosen/Leader, Survivalist, or Cockroach Path, the desperate, cowardly type. In addition, a Player Character has a Luck Bank for storing Luck—one for all Archetypes, except for the Fool, who has space for three; a current Fear status—either Stable, Afraid, or Terrified; and a Lifeline—Weakened, Limping, Trauma, and Dead—which is the same for all Archetypes.

To create a character in Shiver, a player selects an Archetype, a Background which adds a unique Ability and a Flaw. He also adjusts one Core Skill in which his character is deficient. It really is as fast as that. The longest step is noting it all down. Of course, playing a character at a higher Tier will take a longer because the player needs to choose more Abilities, but not by much.

Henry Brinded
Archetype: Scholar
Path: Academic (Tier One)
Abilities: Medic!
Background: The Nerd
Ability: Run Away! Flaw: Weak
Fear: Ligyrophobia

Grit: 2 Wit: 3 Smarts: 5 (Talent: 1) Heart: 3 Luck: 3 Strange: 3

Mechanically, Shiver uses a dice pool system of six-sided dice, their faces marked with the symbols for the roleplaying game’s six Core Skills—Grit, Wit, Smarts, Heart, Luck, and Strange. To these are added Talent dice, eight-sided dice marked with Luck and Strange symbols. (The rules include a conversion guide for using standard six-sided and eight-sided dice, but if the group still wants to use the dice system, there is an online dice roller.) When he wants his Player Character to undertake an action, he assembles a dice pool based on the action and its associated Core Skill plus Talent dice if the Player Character has in that Core Skill. Further dice can be added or deducted depending on whether the Player Character has Advantage or Disadvantage, an Ability which applies, or the player wants to spend his character’s Luck, and on the character’s Fear status.

The aim is to roll a number of symbols or successes in the appropriate Core Skill, the Challenge Rating ranging from one and Easy to five and Near Impossible. If the player rolls enough, then his character succeed; if he rolls two Successes more than the Challenge Rating, it is a Critical Hit; and if a player rolls three or more dice and every symbol is a success, this is Full House. In combat, a Critical Hit doubles damage and a Full House triples it, but out of combat the Director—as the Game Master is known in Shiver—will need to suggest other outcomes for both. If Luck symbols are rolled, one can be saved in the Player Character’s Luck Bank for later use, but if two are rolled, they can be exchanged for a single success on the current skill roll, or they can be used to turn the Doom Clock back by one minute. A failed roll does not necessarily mean that the Player Character fails as he can use other means to succeed at the task if his rolls enough successes in another Core Skill for that task, though this requires some narrative explanation. However, a failed roll has consequences beyond simply not succeeding—each Strange symbol rolled pushes the Doom Clock up by a minute…

For example, the scholar Henry Brinded has found a tome written in Latin containing a spell which he thinks will dispel the monster stalking the halls of the college where he teaches. He can hear the thing getting closer and desperately intones the spell direct from the book. Henry’s player will roll the five dice for his Smarts plus its Talent die and the Director will sets Challenge rating at two. However, Henry is at a Disadvantage because he is intoning from the tome in a hurry and because he has not had the time to study either the tome or the spell. This would reduce the number of Smarts dice his player would roll to four, but Henry has one Luck in his Luck Bank and uses that to counter the Disadvantage. He rolls one Grit, one Smarts, and three Luck on the Core Skill dice and two Luck on the Talent die. This gives him one Smarts and would be a failure except for the five Luck. Henry’s player changes two of the Luck into a Smarts, guaranteeing his successful casting of the spell, adds a third Luck to Henry’s Luck Bank, and the last two he uses to move the Doom Clock back one minute…

Combat uses the same mechanic with monsters and enemies—and the Player Characters when they are attacked—using the same Challenge Rating as skill tests. It is Turn-based, with the Director deciding whether each Player Character is acting First, in the Middle, or Last, depending upon their situation and what they want to do. Players are encouraged to be organised and know what their characters are capable of, the surroundings for the battle, and so on, in order to get the best out of their characters. With every Player Character possessing the same Lifeline (the equivalent of sixteen Health Points), combat can be simply nasty or nasty and deadly, depending upon the mode. In Survivor Mode, a Player Character who loses all of his Health Points is at Death’s Door and his player rolls his Luck Pool to survive until he dies or help arrives. In Nightmare Mode, every four Health Points has a negative effective upon the Player Character, such a as reduction in his Core Skills at Weakened, his movement at Limping, and so on, all the way down to no Health Points and dead—no being at Death’s Door. Depending on the scenario, death though need not be end though. A Player Character could become a ghost and continue to provide help from the afterlife or even become an antagonist!

Fear in Shiver uses the same Challenge Rating system and mechanics. A Fear Check is made with a Player Character’s Strange Dice, and if the player fails the check, the character becomes Afraid, and if Afraid, becomes Terrified. If Afraid, a Player Character loses one die from all Core Skills, and two if Terrified. This temporary, and a Player Character can get rid of the effects of Fear be escaping or vanquishing the threat, steadying himself (this requires another Fear Check), or another Player Character uses an Ability to help him.

Narratively, Shiver is played out against a Doom Clock. This at eleven o’clock at night and counts up minute by minute to Midnight and the Player Characters’ inevitable Doooommm! However, at ‘Quarter Past’, ‘Half Past’, ‘Quarter To’, and ‘Midnight’ certain events will happen, these being defined in the scenario or written in by the Director. So if camping at Lake Blood, a storm might break out at ‘Quarter Past’, then the strange old man who actually knows more than he is letting on might be abducted at ‘Half Past’, a tree fall on the Player Characters’ van at ‘Quarter To’, and then ‘Midnight’, the Serial Killer switch to chasing the Player Characters rather than stalking them. In general the Doom Clock will tick up due to the actions of the Player Characters, whether that is because of a failed skill check with Strange symbols, a failed Fear Check, abilities for the Weird Archetype, Background Flaws, or simply interacting with the wrong things in game. What this means is that dice rolls become even more uncertain, their outcome having more of negative effect potentially than just failures, but this is all in keeping with the genre. However, just as the Doom Clock can tick up to ‘Midnight’ through the Player Characters’ actions. It can also be turned back due to their actions. Rolling two Luck on skill checks, reaching Story Milestones, finding clues and important items, and certain Abilities can all turn the Doom Clock back.

Just as the Doom Clock racks up the tension and triggers bad events, it can also trigger positive events. Some Archetypes have Abilities which can only be used ‘Once Per Doom Quarter’ (others can only be used ‘Once Per Doom Cycle’), whilst the Weird Archetype in particular has Abilities which require the Doom Clock to tick up and trigger. This does make the Weird Archetype a little more complex than the other Archetypes to play and the Abilities are not always going to be helpful to the other Player Characters.

For the Director, there is good advice on her role, setting up a game and setting its tone, building and structuring a story, getting the Player Characters involved, adjudicating the rules, handling the Doom Clock and designing events around it, handling Player Character deaths, and rewarding the Player Characters. The latter ranges from handing out Advantage dice and turning the Doom Clock back to their finding weapons and equipment and being given Levels Up. The latter is based on narrative events and each gives an Archetype access to new Abilities and/or Core Skill increases. In a campaign, it might be as often as at the end of a chapter, but in a one-shot it might be as fast as once a Quarter on the Doom Clock! In addition, the Director is given a huge list of equipment from baseball bats and books of banishment to stake rifles and zweihanders, from acid flasks and bear traps to the Helsing crossbow and Excalibur, and from berserker’s bear and bomb disposal suit to jet packs and symbiotic entities, there is just everything she needs to equip her Player Characters, NPCs, and seed a scenario across an array of genres and time periods.

Similarly, the Director has a big list of monsters and enemies to choose from. They categorised under Slashers, Shapeshifters, Dark Magic, Demonic, Cosmic Horrors, Eldritch Entities, Spirits, Aliens, Vampyrs, and Zombies. All are fully detailed and reflect a wide range of threats and stories that they lend themselves to, and further support the different subgenres of horror that Shiver is designed to cover. In addition to their own Abilities, these monsters and enemies can use Reaction Tables which the Director rolls on whenever a Player Character strikes them in combat. This requires a roll of a single Skill die, and might see a Bruiser type retaliating a slashing attack that does one Blunt damage if the Grit symbol is rolled or Dracula turning into a Cloud of Bats and flitting away on the roll of a Wit symbol. Apart from the Reaction table for Dracula, the Reaction tables are all generic and include a no effect result for rolling the Luck symbol—except for Dracula in which case, he gets hit ‘Right in the Kisser’ and prevents him from making an infect attacks on the next round due to the blow on his fangs! There is advice too for creating Reaction tables for other monsters. Lastly, there is a scenario, ‘Corporate Risers’, which casts the Player Characters as lowly employees at a corporate research centre when there is an outbreak of the zombies. It is a decent scenario which gives a chance for the Director and her players to experience Shiver in a one-shot. It includes notes on character types to create for it, or the player could use those from the SHIVER RPG Quick-start Guide.

Physically, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown is a good-looking book. The artwork is excellent, done in a style similar to that of Mike Mignola and his Hellboy comic, and very much showcases the type of horror stories that Shiver was designed to handle. The writing is clear, but in places, the roleplaying game could have been slightly better organised to make things easier to find.

If there is an issue with Shiver, it lies its generic nature and sometimes in the limited choices offered by the Archetypes. The generic nature means it has to work harder at some subgenres than others and not all of the Abilities offered by the Paths for the Archetypes necessarily fit. This is all due to Shiver having to cover a wide variety of horror types and elements and so some nuances may be lost. However, there are nuances to be found in the mechanics, especially in the Archetype and Ability design as they interact with the Doom Clock. Another issue is that as written, it does feel primarily written for one-shots, so it would be interesting to see what a campaign for Shiver looks like.

Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown is great for one-shots and convention games too. Its simple, fast-paced mechanics hide some nice little nuances—especially in the design of Archetypes and the way that they and the dice rolls interact with the Doom Clock, which means that the players are not just going to be kept on their toes by the monsters, but also by their own dice rolls, as the tension racks up and the clock ticks down... If a group is looking for a generic horror roleplaying game that veers a little towards the Pulp and which can do a range of horror subgenres, especially film-inspired ones, then Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown is a perfect choice.

Clouting Cthulhu

As a darkness falls over a Europe under the heel of the Nazi jackboot, a secret war has begun against the invader, one which at the direction of Winston Churchill, Prime Minster of Great Britain, would “…[S]et Europe ablaze.” This would be led by the Special Operations Executive or SOE, whose operatives, often working with local resistance forces, would carry out acts of sabotage against the Axis war effort, as well as work to establish secret armies which ultimately act in conjunction with Allied invading forces. However, there is a darker, more secret war, this against those Nazi agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. Yet even this dark drive 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… Standing against them, ready to thwart their malign efforts are the audacious Allied agents of Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance, 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!

This is the set-up for Achtung! Cthulhu, the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. Originally published using Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition and Savage Worlds in 2013, and later FATE Core, almost a decade on, it returns in brand new edition. Not though written for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but rather for use with the publisher’s 2d20 System house mechanics, first seen in Mutant Chronicles and Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. The result is a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative action in which the Player Characters can take the fight to the enemy, punch out the Nazis, and wield powerful sorcery or psychic powers against their agents and their Mythos allies, against the backdrop of World War II and the Nazi war machine.

The Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide—heralded as ‘Issue No. 1’ in a series on the cover—starts with a basic introduction to the roleplaying game and its setting, the latter underpinned by a handful of in-game rumours and eyewitness accounts that just hint at some of the horrors to come. It sets the scene before the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide dives into the details of the 2d20 System and Achtung! Cthulhu. Whenever a player wants his Agent to overcome a Test, he rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to roll under a target number. The target number is the value of an Attribute plus a Skill, with Difficulty of a task—ranging from zero to five, from researching the latest news in a newspaper morgue to maintaining your composure when confronted by dread Cthulhu on the once sunken island of R’lyeh—determines the number of successes necessary. Rolls under the target number generate successes. Rolls of one or if the Agent has a Focus in the skill, for example, Fighting (Threat Awareness) or Stealth (Rural Stealth), and rolls equal to or under the value of the skill, all count as Critical successes and are worth two successes rather than one. Any successes generated beyond those needed to beat a Difficulty generate Momentum, but any roll of twenty generates a Complication.

Momentum is a group resource shared by all of the players. It can be spent before a roll is made to purchase extra twenty-sided dice—up to three dice can be purchased this way, but the cost goes up the more dice are purchased; to create a Truth about a situation—Truth can make a situation less complicated or more complicated; obtain information by asking the Game Master; or to reduce the time it takes to perform a test. The players are encouraged to use Momentum, a point being lost at the end of each scene. If there is no Momentum, it can be gained by granting the Game master points of Threat, on a one-for-one basis. The Game master expends Threat to alter scenes, empower her NPCs, and add Complications. Threat can also be generated by a player buying off a Complication or even gaining access to exotic or deadly equipment or knowledge.

In addition all Agents possess Fortune Points. These can be spent to automatically gain a Critical Success, reroll the dice, take an additional major action in combat, to avoid defeat, or to make it happen and immediately add a new Truth to a situation. Fortune Points are regained at the start of each adventure, but can also be gained by voluntarily failing a Skill Test or invoking a scar and having an Agent’s past trauma or an injury inhibit his action.

For example, a team of agents is searching Colonel Köhler’s office for documents to photograph. Whilst another agent sneaks in, Eddie Chapman, posing as a German officer, will distract his secretary. The Game Master sets the Difficulty at two, as she is busy and wants to leave for lunch. Eddie combines his Insight Attribute of 11 with his Persuasion skill of 4. Eddie also has the Charm Focus. So Eddie’s player is rolling under a target number of 15 and any roll under the Charm skill’s value will generate Critical successes. Eddie’s player uses a point of Momentum to purchase a third twenty-sided die, so his player has three to roll rather than two. He rolls fourteen, five, and four. This generates a total of five successes—two each for the four and five as Critical successes, and one for the fourteen. Eddie succeeds in distracting the secretary and generates three Momentum. His player adds one to the Momentum pool, but spends two to add a Truth to the game, which is that the secretary is enamoured of Eddie and will accept his dinner invitation.

The Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide goes into some detail for its combat mechanics. It uses the same core mechanics, but adds further uses for Momentum. This starts with the Keep Initiative option. In combat, the Game Master chooses who acts first, typically a Player Character. Then turn proceeds back and forth in turn between the Player Character Agents and the Game Master’s NPCs, but Momentum can be spent to enable an Agent to act straight after another Agent rather than an NPC. In a turn, a character can take a Minor Action—Aim, Draw Item, Movement, or Prepare, and a Major Action—Assist, Attack, Cast a Spell, Catch Breath, Create Truth, Pass, Ready, Rush, Stabilise, or make a Skill Test. Of these, Aim grants an extra twenty-sided die to an attack; Prepare readies a Major Action, typically Cast a Spell; Catch Breath can remove stress or a damage condition; Create Truth adds, alters, or removes a Truth in a situation; and Stabilise is an attempt to give medical attention to someone who is dying.

Skill Tests in combat are made using the appropriate Attribute and Skill, with Melee attacks being opposed rolls and Ranged attacks not. Damage rolls are made with Challenge Dice. Extra Challenge Dice can be added to an attack for high Attributes—a high Brawn for melee attacks and a high Insight for ranged attacks. Each Challenge Die is marked with a ‘1’, ‘2’, two faces left blank, and two marked with the ‘Achtung! Cthulhu’ symbol, which is equal to ‘1 plus effect’. The Effect results on the Challenge Dice come into play with weapon effects. These can be ‘Area’, ‘Piercing X’, ‘Stun’, ‘Vicious’, and so on. For example, a Bat has a ‘Stun’ Condition, firearms have the ‘Vicious’ Condition, and a Lifebuoy Portable Flamethrower, No. 2 Mk. II has the ‘Persistent’ Condition.

The numbers are added up and that indicates the amount of Stress inflicted on the opponent. Resistance will reduce the amount of Stress inflicted, from Armour and Cover for physical Stress, and Courage and Morale for mental Stress. Stress can be mental or physical, so physical might be from getting shot or punched, but mental might be from a spell or having a knife held to the throat! An Agent only has the one Stress track for handling both, and if an Agent suffers five Stress from a single attack or has his Stress track completely filled in, he suffers an Injury. Multiple types of Injury are listed, for example, Amputee or Lingering Shrapnel for a Physical Injury or Compulsive/Obsessive Rituals or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for a Mental Injury. An Injury serves as a Truth which will impede him under certain circumstances, whether mental or physical. If an Agent suffers three Injuries, he is defeated and if he suffers another, he is dead. An Injury, of either type can be healed, but that comes with the possibility of leaving a Scar, a permanent sign of the Injury. An Injury or a Scar can impede an Agent in play and earn him a Fortune Point if either of them causes the Agent to voluntarily fail.

An Agent in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 is defined by his Attributes, Skills, associated Skill Focuses, Talents, Truths, Belongings, and Contacts. He has six Attributes—Agility, Brawn, Coordination, Insight, Reason, and Will—rated between eight and twelve, with eight being average, whilst his Skills are rated between one and five. To create an Agent, a player chooses an Archetype, for example, Boffin, Con Artist, or Occultist; Nationality; a Background such as Air Force, Labourer, or Spiritual Leader; and a distinct Characteristic, like Bookworm, Owned an Occult Artefact, or Young at Heart. At each stage, an Agent receives bonuses to his Attributes and Skills, as well as Skill Focuses, Talents, Truths, Belongings, and Contacts. The exception is Nationality, which provides a Nationality and Languages as Truths. The process consists of a player making choices at each stage, and the range of Archetype, Nationality, Background, and Characteristic options enable him to create a wide range of character types.

Eddie Chapman
Nationality: British
Archetype: Con Artist
Background: Criminal
Characteristic: Criminal Mindset

ATTRIBUTES
Agility 09 Brawn 07 Coordination 07 Insight 11 Reason 08 Will 09

STRESS TRACK – 10

RESISTANCE
Armour Resistance: 0
Courage Resistance: 1

BONUS DICE
Melee Attacks: 0
Ranged Attacks: +2
Magical/Mental Attacks: +1

SKILLS
Academia 1, Engineering 1, Observation 3 (Instincts), Persuasion 4 (Charm), Resilience 1 (Discipline), Stealth 4 (Urban Stealth), Tactics 1, Vehicles 1

TALENTS
A Way With Words, Subtle Cues, Perfect Timing

TRUTHS
English, Black Market Dealer, Criminal Mindset

LANGUAGES
English, German

BELONGINGS
Disguise Kit

Unlike other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, Player Characters—or Agents—can begin play knowing magic. This requires the Occultist Archetype and a Talent with the spellcaster keyword. Magic is either learnt through a Tradition—Runeweaving (draws on the power of Runes to channel the power of the Viking gods), Druidism (animistic and natural beliefs), or Psychic; Dabbling—typically by amateurs who initially learn flawed spells; or Research—through rigorous study. Spells include battlefield magic like Spear of Lug or Curse of Loki, and rituals such as Commune with Deity or Baldur’s Shield, which requires time and the caster to inflict Stress against the ritual’s Stress Track to successfully cast it. Psychic abilities include Combat Perception and Telepathy. A spellcaster has the base Power rating of one, indicating the number of Challenge Dice his player rolls to inflict Stress—both on the target or ritual, or the spellcaster himself as a consequence of casting the spell. Spell types include attack, banishment, blessing, control, curse, discharged, divination, manifestation, and summoning.

Spells can be miscast, indicated by a roll of a Complication on any die, the Complication widening the greater the Difficulty of casting the spell, and they can also be flawed, which means that the spell automatically generates a Complication, extra twenty-sided dice can only be bought using Threat, and there are no Momentum expenditures associated with that version of the spell. Spellcasters can also engage in magical duels. Overall, there are only a handful of spells for each Tradition, and only two Rituals. There are no Mythos spells, although Agents can learn them.

Henry Brinded
Nationality: American
Archetype: Occultist
Background: Academic
Characteristic: Veteran of the Great War

ATTRIBUTES
Agility 06 Brawn 08 Coordination 09 Insight 08 Reason 10 Will 10

STRESS TRACK – 12

RESISTANCE
Armour Resistance: 0
Courage Resistance: 2

BONUS DICE
Melee Attacks: 0
Ranged Attacks: 0
Magical/Mental Attacks: +2

BASE POWER: 2

SPELLS
Wisdom of Frigg, Balm of Belenus

SKILLS
Academia 4 (Linguistics, Occultism), Fighting 1, Observation 2, Persuasion 3 (Invocation), Resilience 2 (Discipline), Stealth 1, Survival 2


TALENTS
Occult Scholar, Library Dweller, Sharpshooter

TRUTHS
English, Professor of Classics

LANGUAGES
English, Latin

Beyond the rules, character creation, and magic, most of the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide is devoted to the arms, armour, equipment and forces of the Allied and Axis powers. This includes guns, tanks, and more, primarily for the American, British, and German forces. There are rules here too for vehicular combat. The coverage of the armed forces is broad, focusing mainly on the special forces and intelligence agencies, and on actual historical agencies rather than the ones operating in the world of Achtung! Cthulhu. Stats are given for various Allied troop types and there is a discussion of the Home Front too.

So the question is, what is missing from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide? Primarily the Mythos. This is understandable, given that actual knowledge should be for the Game Master to know and the players and their Agents to find out. However, what this also means is that there are no Mythos spells despite some Occultist Agents being allowed to learn them, and perhaps worse, no rules for handling Sanity when encountering the Mythos as per other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror. Well, okay, perhaps the players and their Agents do not need to know how Sanity is lost—yet, but it is not difficult to surmise as a being a Skill Test using Will and Resilience against a Difficulty which will vary according to the unnatural nature of the Mythos entity encountered or spell cast, with failures leading to Challenge Dice rolls which inflict Stress and mental Injuries. Oddly, whilst there are stats for Allied forces, there are none for the enemy, despite there being stats for German vehicles and tanks.

Physically, the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide is well presented. It does need an edit in places, but it is well written, and there are some excellent examples of play which explain how the roleplaying game is intended to be played. However, the book’s full colour artwork is fantastic. Much of it has been seen in the previous iteration of Achtung! Cthulhu, but the new artwork in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide is really good, capturing the action, excitement, and horror of the war against the darkest forces of the Axis powers.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 is not a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror for the player who prefers the Purist style of play. It is too action orientated with guns aplenty and Agents who can cast magic, and thus too Pulpy in tone and style. In fact, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 is not a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror at all. Rather Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 is instead a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian action horror in which the Player Characters fight evil as well as confront the unknowable—and the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide is a great start to the action and the horror.