A Wick’d World

Operating in the shadows, untouched by the police, and with the utmost of professionalism, there is a world of killers. Professional assassins and hitmen, trackers and bounty hunters. Killing not because they are evil or cruel. Killing because it is their duty, because it is their skill, because it is their style, because it is their job, because it is their honour. They may be employed by one of the great families. They may be freelancers hired from one job to the next. They may belong to secret society that has long used assassination as a tool. Their world is governed by the secret and ancient organisation known as the Stone. Beneath the Stone are six families, each representing one of the major criminal organisations—the Bratva, the Camorra, the Cartel, the Mafia, the Triads, and the Yakuza—which the killers may be allied with or work for as freelancers, and which control great swathes of territory and influence the direction of whole cities and nations. They also feud with each other and that is in part why the actions of the killers are so regulated by the Stone, lest such feuds get out of hand and come to the attention of the wider world. The killers, in return for their skill that they hone constantly, live lives of luxury. They also have access to the Belmont, not just a chain of businesses that serve the world of the professional killers, but also a hotel where they can stay, relax, arrange for new contracts, and order the latest tactical gear like it was fine wine. And best of all, the Belmont is neutral ground. Of course, if a professional killer is declared a renegade by the Stone, then it is game on, and the renegade is anybody’s to hunt and kill.

This is the setting for World of Killers, ‘A Supplement of Assassins, Hired Guns, and Secret Societies for Outgunned’. Published by Two Little Mice, Outgunned: Cinematic Action Roleplaying Game is the cinematic action roleplaying game 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. It expands the rules for Outgunned with five new roles and a special role, nine new tropes, rules for trained dogs and both hunts and getaways, new gear, and a cinematic campaign, ready to play with four pre-generated killers. All of this is inspired by John Wick, Kill Bill, Leon, Assassin’s Creed, and Hitman. Of these, the first is important because essentially, World of Killers is unashamedly the John Wick series of films with the serial numbers filed off, and short of an actual licence, that really is no bad thing. After all, the players get to play in a very similar world to the one they have seen on screen.

Arguably, because most players of World of Killers will have seen the John Wick films, or at least be aware of them, the supplement does not need a huge amount of detail to describe its setting. The background covers the Stone, its organisation and the important roles within it, all six families who get a page each, the Belmont and the services it provides, paying particular attention to the New York Belmont, and then the Rats. The Rats live on the fringes of society and on the fringes on the fringes of the world of killers, a mixture of criminals, dropouts, derelicts, and outcasts, led by a Rat Queen in New York, and providing similar services to the Belmont—protection, gear, information, and favours. This all costs of course, and nothing more than offering a sanctuary for renegades.

The five new roles in and for the World of Killers are the Samurai, Hired Gun, Aristocrat, Dog Trainer, and Derelict. As in the core rulebook, these are templates that give options in terms of Work, Catchphrase, Flaw, and Characteristics, including attribute and skill points feats, and gear, that a player customises. They include a list of inspirations from a variety of action films as well, starting off, of course, with the John Wick franchise. If the Samurai and Hired Gun are obvious, the others less so. The Aristocrat relies on breeding, manners, and charisma; the Dog Trainer operate with a trained canine companion, which can be a tracker dog or an attack dog; and the Derelict lives on the streets and very likely has a past with the world of killers. In addition, the World of Killers gives a sixth, special role, one that combines a standard Player Character’s Role, Trope, and Job in one, and that is the Assassin. The Assassin does get more skill points to assign and three Feats instead of two. Although there is no inspirational list of films to accompany it, the illustration makes it obvious that the role is inspired by the Assassin’s Creed series of computer games. Its inclusion opens up the possibility of setting Outgunned stories in the past.

Besides new Tropes such as ‘Battle Butler’, ‘Gone Rogue’, ‘Magnificent Bastard’, and ‘Professional’, and new Feats like ‘Deflect Bullets’, ‘Elegance’, ‘Endure Pain’, ‘Gun Fu’, and ‘Sword Fighter’, World of Killers adds two new Plan B options. ‘Blade’ grants an immediate success or amazing advantage with a slash of the sword, whilst ‘Belmont’ brings the intervention of the organisation, whether its personnel or its services. Gold, particular coins, is introduced as an exclusive currency to gain access to Belmont services, equipment, and favours and services, and is earned communally for completing tasks and contracts for the Stone, the Belmont, and the families.

Although the Trained Dog is specifically for the Dog Trainer Role, it is possible for a Player Character to gain one later. The Trained Dog itself is treated as character in its own right, complete with a flaw, attributes, and Grit. Stats are given for a hunting falcon and a monkey as well as a dog. The other major addition to Outgunned are the rules for ‘Hunts’. This handles how assassinations and kills play out by tracking two numbers, ‘Need’ and ‘Kill’. ‘Need’ measures how close the Player Characters are to the target and how exposed the target is, whilst ‘Kill’ tracks the Player Characters’ position and advantage over the target. From turn to turn, the players roll and narrate how they get closer to the target, increasing their ‘Kill’ until their characters are in the position to carry out the shot. A Hunt can then turn into a chase, whether the Player Characters fail and have to go after their target, or fail or succeed and are then pursued by the target’s forces. Supported by an example, the ‘Hunt’ rules set up great set pieces full of tension and pent up violence.

Half of World of Killers is dedicated to a cinematic scenario, ‘Family Business’. It incudes four pre-generated Player Characters, a Hired Gun, an Aristocrat, a Dog Trainer, and a Samurai. They are asked for help by the manager of New York’s Belmont, an old friend or someone whom they are indebted to, who has let two renegades slip out of his grasp. The Stone has given him twenty-four hours to make up for his error. The hunt for the two renegades—who turn out be star-crossed lovers and killers—takes the Player Characters to a showdown on a cruise and back to New York where they discover that the Stone has already taken away their own friend to be judged at a Tribunal. This is not how things are normally conducted, so the Player Characters’ suspicions should have been aroused and they will want to investigate. As they do so, they run the risk of being declared renegade, must face the Stone’s own forces and those of some of the families, travel around the world from New York to Rome to Tokyo, and unmask a conspiracy that could upset the balance between the six families. It is a highly entertaining scenario that takes the Player Characters from the highs to the lows of the world of killers and back again. There are some great set scenes and the players get to try out the ‘Hunt’ rules more than once. The five-shot scenario will probably take several sessions to play through and very nicely showcases the setting.

The scenario is supported by several handouts, actually portraits of all of the Player Characters and NPCs, not handouts in the traditional sense, since Outgunned is not an investigative roleplaying game. The scenario is expertly presented though with scenes detailed on the lefthand page and advice for the Game Master on the right. This format makes the scenario easy to run from the page. There are some sequel suggestions too in addition to some scenario ideas given earlier in the book.

Physically, World of Killers is, like Outgunned, a good looking book. The artwork is excellent and the layout clean and tidy, and easy to read.

If you are a fan of Outgunned, then you are going to want World of Killers, and if you are a fan of the John Wick films, you are going to want World of Killers. As an action film roleplaying game, Outgunned is great for one-shots, but World of Killers gives it a setting, a structure, and a franchise that the players can return to again and again.

Work is Scary

“A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies! A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!”—Blade Runner

Building Better Worlds is the second campaign supplement for Alien: The Roleplaying Game. It is unfortunately, the last supplement for Alien: The Roleplaying Game. It is fortunately, compatible with Alien: The Roleplaying Game – Evolved Edition, just as is every other release for Alien: The Roleplaying Game. There are several ways in which Alien: The Roleplaying Game can be played. It has three themes, two modes, and three models. The three themes are Space Horror and Sci-Fi Action, combined with a Sense of Wonder, whilst the two modes are Cinematic and Campaign. Cinematic mode is designed to emulate the drama of a film set within the Alien universe, and so emphasises high stakes, faster, more brutal play, and will be deadlier, whilst the Campaign mode is for longer, more traditional play, still brutal, if not deadly, but more survivable. Of the two, the Cinematic mode is suited to one-shots, to convention play, and as introductions to the mechanics and setting of Alien: The Roleplaying Game. The three models are Colonial Marines, essentially military missions like Aliens; Frontier Colonists—miners, prospectors, and settlers trying to survive for a better life on an all but barren planet; and Space Truckers—starship crews hauling goods and resources, as in Alien. Of the support to date, the trilogy of scenarios—Chariot of the Gods (also available in the Alien: The Roleplaying Game Starter Set), Destroyer of Worlds, and Heart of Darkness—have all been in the Cinematic mode, but for different models, focusing in turn upon Space Truckers, Colonial Marines, and Scientists. Together they form a thematically connected campaign, whereas the Colonial Marines Operations Manual not only detailed the United States Colonial Marine Corps, it also provided a full campaign for the Colonial Marines model. Building Better Worlds does the same, but for Frontier Colonists and Space Truckers.

Building Better Worlds is a book that will take you out—far out—into the Alien universe to the Outer Rim Territories as far as the frontier of the Weyland Isles Sector, and then quite literally beyond, that is, ‘Beyond the 20 Parsec Limit’ where there is little hope of help or rescue if an outpost or colony gets into trouble or needs rescuing. Building Better Worlds is a book about the future of humanity and finding new worlds, living on worlds and settlements far from Earth not always best suited to colonisation, about making the lengthy journeys between them, and surviving some of the deadliest of secrets and dangers in the galaxy. With Building Better Worlds, the Game Mother can run campaigns that focus on searching for and discovering new planets—hopefully suited to settlement or exploitation, if not both; on settling, working, and developing colonies; and on transporting goods and passengers between them. It is designed to be used by both player and Game Mother and so is book of two halves. The first half includes an explanation of the fundamentals of exploration and colonisation, the colonisation timeline, a mix of governmental non-governmental organisations, guidelines to creating suitable Player Characters as well as two new careers, numerous weapons, vehicles of all types, and other equipment, and some ideas around which campaigns could be based. This half, roughly a third of the book, is for the player, whilst the longer second half is for the Game Master. That half includes two catalogues, one of the systems and colonies of the frontier, the other of the parts of the Weyland-Yutani Extrasolar Species Catalogue that Weyland-Yutani does not want you to see, ‘The Lost Worlds’, a complete sandbox campaign beyond the frontier, and the expanded means to create new worlds and colonies, and for running a colony.

The supplement opens with the facts of colonisation and space travel. That it is heroic, that it is dirty, that it is dangerous, and that it is expensive. That explorers need to be hardy and well-trained and that the pay is invariably good, whilst colonists need to be even more hardy, prepared for life on another world, and expect to be paid little, if at all. Both are likely to need to pay back for their training, though this is easier for explorers who make more income, and both exploration and colonisation expeditions are going to be funded by wealthy corporations, governments, or institutions. The history of colonisation runs from 2029 CE and the Weyland Era to the 2190s and the Black Gold Rush following the terrorist nuclear bombings of petroleum supply colonies, the Colony Wars, and the Great Mother Mission launched to contact lost colonies. However, the explanation of events is organised by category and the timeline crammed into a two-page spread, so it is difficult to get a proper feel for the flow of events.

The organisations chapter includes descriptions of positions on Scientific Exploration Vehicular (SEV) Expeditions and the Extrasolar Colonization Administration (ECA), useful as potential roles for both Player Characters and NPCs, whilst the governmental organization and corporation descriptions are a mix of the familiar and unfamiliar. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation, the Seegson Corporation, United Americas, Colonial Marine Corps, Union of Progressive Peoples, and more will be familiar, expanding upon the information in both the Alien: The Roleplaying Game corebook and the Colonial Marines Operations Manual. The less familiar includes the Central Confederation of Africa, which is a minor, but rising interstellar power, and the New Albion Protectorate, a former colony located in the Weyland Isles, which seceded from the Three World Empire (3WE) and is prompting other colonies to follow suit in an effort commonly called ‘3WExit’ (you can tell that the author is British).

In terms of character options, Building Better World offers two new Careers as well as discussing how the different Careers from Alien: The Roleplaying Game can find their way onto exploration missions and colonisations expeditions and why they might join both, along with a table of possible personal agendas, which is very good. Each is also given two new Frontier Talents and two items of Frontier Gear. For example, the Frontier Talents for the Colonial Marshal are ‘Menacing’ and ‘Tough’, whilst the items of Frontier Gear are a ‘Bounty hunter/Investigator licence’ or ‘Handcuffs’. The two new Careers are the Wildcatter and the Entertainer. The Wildcatter is a prospector or surveyor who explores new worlds looking for resources or suitable sites for colonisation. The Entertainer is suggested as being a performer, croupier, unofficial club owner, waiter, barkeep, or other profession, which is less useful for most campaigns. It would need a static set-up—a base or a colony or a space station—to be a logical character option, and when things go sideways as they should, would also be the basis for a replacement Player Character.

There is a good selection of new gear and ships which can be found all across the frontier and beyond. New weapons, armour and suits, other equipment, vehicles, and spacecraft. The other equipment ranges from items as simple as a Folding Spade and Digging Fork (which of course, can be sued as a weapon) and as complex as the ‘Omni-Tech SDDG Sonic Deterrent Defence Grid’ designed to deter indigenous wildlife and pests from getting inside a perimeter. It is effective against humans though, inducing stress. The vehicles are typically large, multi-wheeled, and rugged, the COBB-C/D ‘Grasshopper Multivector Helijet’ an exception. The spaceships include the Lockmart Model 439SL Class 7 Excavator which has a heavy mining drill in its prow; the Weyland Heliades-Class, the first FTL-capable spacecraft; and colony vessels such as the Lockmart Model TB22C Borrowdale Class Transfer Vehicle and W-Y Model CY78.3 Affiance-Class U Colony Ship.

Surprisingly, the advice and suggestions for campaigns is in the half of Building Better Worlds for the player rather than in the section for the Game Mother. There are rules for surviving new environmental conditions, but the most interesting content here is the discussion of campaign types, set-ups, and expedition types. There are some colony classifications described too, including the ‘Shake and Bake’, ‘Extra Crispy’, ‘Giffy Popped’, and ‘Armed and Hammered’, that will give certain colonies similar feels. The two types of campaign discussed are Explorer and Colony Campaigns and together with the list of potential expedition types, such as supply and cargo runs, salvage ops, prospecting, scientific field-trips, and more, gives the Game Mother a decent range of ideas around which to base campaigns and plots. These are solid prompts, but as much they give the Game Mother some good starting points, the reader is left wanting more as each is worthy of further expansion and discussion.

For the Game Master, Building Better Worlds is also broken into two halves, one more general in nature, the other specific to the campaign, ‘The Lost Worlds’. The more general half begins with details of eighteen new systems located in the Outer Rim Territories, the Frontier, and Beyond the 20 Parsec Limit. Each has a description that gives its history and current status, plus list of stats and details that includes affiliation, classification, climate and temperature, terrain, notable colonies, population, and key resources. There are no hooks given so the Game Mother will need to work hard to develop these into fuller adventure locations with reasons why anyone would visit them. At half a page, they are underwritten and perhaps point towards the need for a world guide for Alien: The Roleplaying Game – Evolved Edition.

The second section is the ‘Weyland-Yutani Extrasolar Species Catalogue’. From Abominations and Fulfremmen (Perfected) to Protomorphs and and Xenomorphs, this is an expanded bestiary of your worst nightmares that nobody wants to meet and this being for Alien: The Roleplaying Game, unfortunately will. Many of these have been taken from the film Prometheus and the cinematic scenario, Heart of Darkness. Some also appear in the campaign that follows, but this still expands the options available to the Game Mother wanting to surprise and unnerve her players and their characters.

The second half of the section for the Game Mother is ‘The Lost Worlds’, a campaign that takes up just under half of Building Better Worlds. It builds off the timeline given earlier and set in the 2190s, concerns the Great Mother Mission. This is a combined multi-national, multi-corporation humanitarian, recontact, and recolonisation expedition launched by the United Nations Interstellar Settlement Corps to discover what happened to the settlements and peoples of the Far Spinward Colonies following their isolation from the Outer Rim due to a series of massive solar ejections, gamma bursts, and waves of radiation. It has been seventy-five years since contact was lost and numerous vested interests want to know what has happened to the millions of people who settled the region. There is even hope that if successful, the Great Mother Mission will serve as an example of co-operation and goodwill in the face of increased hostilities between the United Americas and the Union of Progressive Peoples. Of course, the expedition is rife with tensions and issues, both political and corporate, and these will drive the actions of the expedition members NPCs for much of the campaign and influence those of the Player Characters too.

The Player Characters are members of the expedition assigned to the UNCSS Solovetsky Island, one of Great Mother Mission’s four Magellan-class J Science Exploration Vessels (SEV). They can take just about any role about ship, but need to be free to conduct planet-based missions too. Otherwise, the players have a lot of freedom in terms of what characters they can create and roleplay. The campaign consists of seven chapters or expeditions, the first six of which can be played in any order as a sandbox, the completion of each one reward the players and their characters with another piece of the campaign’s metapuzzle, whilst the seventh serves as the campaign’s finale. Alternatively, they can be run as one-shots, but that would negate the tension and mystery that builds as the campaign progresses. The lose structure of the campaign also means that the Game Master has room to create her own scenarios set on other worlds in the Far Spinward Colonies. She may want to do that to have her Player Characters discover what happened to the other colonies that were not necessarily affected by the campaign’s emerging threat. The campaign includes a Session Zero for set-up and guidance on how to handle downtime scenes between the expeditions, as well as list of events that can occur as necessary or because of the Player Characters’ actions.

Over the course of the campaign, the Player Characters will visit colonies riven by a family feud, divided into extreme haves and have-nots, on the edge of insurrection, and seemingly empty bar strict automation. They will also conduct a search and rescue mission for a lost expedition vessel and even help set up and run a colony. The latter makes use of the colony creation and operation rules and advice in the supplement’s appendix which also include expanded rules for creating star systems and planets. Structurally, since ‘The Lost Worlds’ can be played in any order, it does lack a sense of space or urgency as written. Rather urgency is going to build from the narrative and the discoveries that the Player Characters make as opposed to inbuilt timing mechanism. Thus, by the end of the sixth part of the campaign, the Player Characters will have uncovered, even encountered, and hopefully understood the nature of a threat to not just the Far Spinward Colonies, but all of occupied space. Again and again, the Player Characters will find signs of ‘alien’ activity and even be confronted by it, but where in a Cinematic scenario, the objectives are simply survival and escape, here they are also to learn and wonder at some the secrets that the campaign will reveal.

Building Better Worlds does feel as if it should be two books, one focusing on its themes of colonisation and exploration, the other on its campaign. Perhaps as two books, the one devoted to colonisation and exploration would have had more room for colonies of the Alien universe to be expanded upon and detailed. Plus, ‘The Lost Worlds’ is more of a re-exploratory campaign than an exploratory campaign and were it not for the expedition where the Player Characters get to set up and run a colony, that part of the supplement would have been ignored. However, this does not mean that as just the one book, Building Better Worlds is a bad book by any stretch of the imagination.

Physically, Building Better Worlds is a great looking book. It is well written and the artwork is as excellent as you would expect for the line. As with other books for Alien: The Roleplaying Game, the layout is fairly open and thus easier to read. Being for the first edition of the roleplaying game, it still uses the black background that some readers have an issue with.

Building Better Worlds expands Alien: The Roleplaying Game—and consequently Alien: The Roleplaying Game – Evolved Edition—with a wealth of options, campaign ideas and playstyles, threats and other dangers, that all together open the possibilities of the roleplaying game’s Campaign mode and the Frontier Colonist campaign model. It then showcases them with a great campaign that delivers an escalating combination of horror and hubris.

Friday Filler: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window

The film Rear Window is a classic thriller, regarded as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best. It combines claustrophobia and voyeurism in a murder mystery which plays out from one point of view, that of Professional photojournalist L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies. Following an accident whilst getting a front cover shot, he is confined to a wheelchair with a leg in a cast in his Greenwich Village apartment. With nothing to do and armed with a telephoto lens, he starts watching his neighbours whom he can see through the rear window of his apartment and into theirs. Sitting in the darkness he observes them going about their daily lives and as he becomes more obsessed about them, he suspects that one of them has committed a murder. It is a fantastic set-up for a film and if you have never seen it, you really should. It has parties, knives, bickering, laughing, weeping, music… and a mysterious trunk! In fact, you should definitely see it before playing Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, a board game designed by Prospero Hall and published by Funko Games. However, you can play the game without watching it because the set-up is simple and you are not actually playing the role of L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies and his friends, although they do play a part in the game.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is designed to be played by three to five players, aged thirteen and over, and be played in less than an hour. The game is about solving the mystery of what can be seen through the eponymous window. Sometimes it will be murder and sometimes it will be not. One player takes the role of the Director who randomly sets up the mystery (or the murder if the mystery is a murder), whilst the other players are Watchers, who over the course of four days (or rounds), look through their window into the apartments of their four neighbours. However, they know nothing about their neighbours—who they are, what they do, and what they are like—and this constitutes the mystery at the heart of the game (in addition to the murderer, if there is a murderer) that they need to solve by the end of the fourth day. The elements that make up this mystery are represented by Resident and Attribute Tokens. Of course, the Director knows everything, but can only communicate to the Watchers via the cards he plays from his hand. For the Watchers, interpreting these correctly is key to winning the game.

At the end of the game, if there is not a murder, both Watchers and Director win if the Watchers correctly guess all eight spots taken up by the Resident and Attribute Tokens behind the Director’s Screen on the Solution Board. Otherwise, they all lose. If there is a murder, the Watchers win if they correctly identify seven or eight of the spots taken up by the Resident and Attribute Tokens and the identity of the Murderer. However, if the Watchers only correctly deduce six or seven of the spots taken up by the Resident and Attribute Tokens and fail to identify the Murderer, then they lose and the Director wins. Lastly, if the Watchers only work six or fewer of identities of seven or eight of the spots taken up by the Resident and Attribute Tokens and fail to work who the Murder is, then again, everyone loses. Thus, depending on the set-up, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is either a co-operative game or a semi-co-operative game.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window comes richly appointed. There are a Director Screen and a Watcher Screen, four Day Boards (one for each round), Solution Board, four Watcher Placards, seventy Window Cards, one-hundred-and-two tiles, forty-five Resident and Attribute Tokens, a Trunk Box, four wooden cubes, and the Rulebook. All of the components are of good quality, but the artwork is exceptional. Instead of using photographs from the film, the game uses painted illustrations which capture the period and feel for the film as well as the likenesses of the main cast on each of the four Watcher Placards. Even the front of the Rulebook replicates the photograph of the Grand Prix accident that L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies shot and which landed him in a wheelchair!

At the start of the game, the Director randomly draws eight Resident and Attribute Tokens and lays them out on the Solution Board he keeps behind his Director Screen. Any Tokens not used, go into the Trunk—a little cardboard trunk made to like the one used by the murderer in the film! Each day consists of three phases, the ‘Window Phase’, the ‘Deduction Phase’, and the ‘Scoring Phase’. In the ‘Window Phase’, the Director draws eight Window cards and plays them on to the current Day Board to represent what L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies (and the Watchers) can see from his apartment. Each Window card depicts a scene in a neighbouring apartment and shows an array of elements. One can show a woman in a yellow dress about to move a dining chair, there is a meal and a glass on the dining table, whilst on the wall there is a painting of a waterfall and a lake, whilst on another there is a low table upon which stands two full cocktail glasses and a very full jewellery case behind which on the wall is the shadow of two women clasping hands. Notably, there is even one of Hitchcock himself adjusting the hands on a clock that stands on a mantlepiece next to some books, whilst a phonograph plays in the foreground, just like his cameo in the film. There is no text on these cards and both Watchers and Director are free to interpret the images in any way that they like.

Most of the time, Window cards are played face up, but they can be played face down as if the window the Watchers are looking through is closed. The Director will do this if he feels that a Window card cannot impart any clues (or even too many clues if there is a Murderer!). If a Director does not like the Window cards he has drawn, he can use a Cut token to discard and redraw as many as he likes, but this can only be done three times.

In the ‘Deduction Phase’, the Watchers ponder the current Day Board that the Director filled out in the ‘Window Phase’. They can also look at any previous Day Boards as there may be linked clues, but on the current Day Board, after some discussion and deliberation between themselves, they place four Resident Tokens and four Attribute Tokens indicating who they think are involved in the mystery. If there is a murder and the Watchers think they know who the murderer is, then they also add a purple token to indicate that. The Watchers can also use the Watcher Placards, of which there are four, representing the film’s main cast. For example, the L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies Watcher Placard is ‘Hand me the binoculars’ which forces the Director to discard a Window card placed face down and replace it, whilst the Lisa Fremont Watcher Placard is ‘Breaking and Entering’ which enables the Watchers to ask the Director which is the most important feature on a particular Window card.

In the ‘Scoring Phase’, the Director compares the four Resident Tokens and four Attribute Tokens on the current Day Board with those on his Solution Board and marks how many the Watchers have got right.

The play of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is about imparting information that the other players will try and guess correctly, although that will change slightly if there is a murder, in which case the Director needs to impart enough information so that the Watchers can get some details of the solution correct and so avoiding having everyone lose, but not enough that they guess everything, including the identity of the murderer and so win. Not every play through of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window involves a murder, but when it does, it changes the way in which the game is played. The communication is done silently by the Director via the Window cards and since they are randomly drawn each Day, he will not always have the most obvious cards to play. He will thus be trying to play the best Window cards that he can, the ones that he thinks will impart the clues he wants to get across. After that, it is down to the Watchers and their interpretation.

As has already been pointed out, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is a very fine looking game. The rulebook itself is very well written and takes the players through the set-up process and the play of the game with ease. There is even advice on how to set up the tray that holds all of the tokens and there is an FAQ at the back. The rules are simple and clearly written.

The film Rear Window is the last film that you would think suitable for a board game adaptation. Yet it works and it works well, it has a fantastic sense of claustrophobia, voyeurism, and potential for the misreading of the situation, just as the film does. Plus, there is that question it constantly asks us, “How well do we know our neighbours?” Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is a fine social deduction game that fans of the classic film will love and players of similar games will enjoy.

The Full Zero to Hero

Like any good action film, Mission Dossier: Project Medusa starts with a bang! Not with the bang of a gunshot, but with the sound a door being kicked open and the bruised and bloody contact that the Heroes have been waiting for, being thrown to the floor of the diner where they have been waiting for him. After the requisite brawl with the thugs that beat him and came after the Heroes, the chase is on the MacGuffin of the title—a speedy drive to the airfield followed by a race to board a departing aeroplane, which before it reaches it destination, will explode, deliberately, of course, leaving the heroes in mid air and short of parachutes… This then is the opening part of Mission Dossier: Project Medusa, a scenario, or ‘mini-campaign’ for Outgunned, the cinematic action roleplaying game 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.

Mission Dossier: Project Medusa is ‘A 3-Shot Introductory Campaign for Outgunned’ and if it seems familiar, there is a good reasons for this. This is because its first part, or shot, ‘Race Against Time’ is used in both the core rulebook as the introductory scenario and in Outgunned– Zero to Hero, the quick-start for Outgunned. So, by the time the Director and her players get to Mission Dossier: Project Medusa, they may already have played through the first part. That said, it is nice to have the whole scenario in one place, and further, all of Mission Dossier: Project Medusa can be run using the Outgunned – Zero to Hero rather than the full rules in Outgunned. Both Outgunned and Mission Dossier: Project Medusa were funded via a Kickstarter campaign and published by the Italian publisher, Two Little Mice, via Free League Publishing. Mission Dossier: Project Medusa comes with four ready-to-play Heroes—a maverick undercover police officer, a hotshot driver and pilot, an ever cheerful bounty hunter, and a charming martial artist—and can be played through in two or three sessions. Some elements of these Heroes are written into the story, so if the players want to create their own Heroes, the Director will need to link them to the plot. If the players do want to create their own Heroes, it is recommended that one of them be a hotshot driver.

Mission Dossier: Project Medusa quickly summarises the plot and its three shots, introduces the four Heroes (character sheets for each of them is included at the back), and both explains who the villain is and what his dastardly plan is. This is the charming Greek philanthropist, Konstantin Stamos, who has a very dark past and a suitcase to take delivery of. The suitcase is the MacGuffin of the scenario and contains a deadly virus, which if unleashed, would kill millions. ‘Race Against Time’ is not clear as to where it is set beyond an unspecified sea-side city, but the action definitely switches to Greece for the second and parts of the scenario, ‘Unwanted Guests’ and ‘Into the Heart of Medusa’. In ‘Unwanted Guests’, the Heroes land in Greece and discover who is behind the beating up of the Heroes’ contact in the previous act, one Konstantin Stamos, and that he is holding a big party very shortly. Which gives an opportunity for the Heroes to infiltrate the event, trying to avoid the attention of the security at Stamos’ villa, and learning more of the villain’s secrets. Since this is the second act, it will end with another fight, of course, a big fight, and will end with the Heroes being captured and imprisoned. ‘Into the Heart of Medusa’, they discover the truly monstrous nature of both Stamos’ plans and its origins, fight their way out of a collapsing secret laboratory, and engage in a helicopter chase, before a final showdown between Stamos and one Hero atop a cliff.

Make no mistake, Mission Dossier: Project Medusa is linear and straightforward, and whilst there is opportunity for the players to embellish parts of the scenario, there is no deviation from its plot. This should be okay though, since the players are here for an action film, not a melodrama, and for their heroes to land punches and shoot the villains and look very, very cool whilst doing it.

What is particularly noticeable about Mission Dossier: Project Medusa is its format. The details of the scenario are always placed on the left, whilst the advice—or ‘Pro-Tips’—for the Director, is always placed on the right in a big, bold, red block with the text in white and different typefaces used on each page. The ‘Pro-Tips’ varies in size, or rather width, throughout the scenario. On some two-page spreads, it is a simple sidebar, on others, it takes up a whole page. The latter includes every scene and situation in the adventure, the advice and suggestions keyed to particular scenes. The advice suggests moments when the Heroes have an opportunity to rest and remove a Condition they might have suffered in a previous scene, the best way to handle a scene, ideas as to how a scene might be expanded or embellished typically to enable the players to develop their Heroes, and to expand on the villains’ actions. The advice is very good and there is so much of it that Mission Dossier: Project Medusa might actually be considered to be half-adventure, half-advice for the Director. Certainly, there is a lot here that the Director can learn and apply to subsequent Outgunned campaigns.

Lastly, Mission Dossier: Project Medusa includes not one, but six ideas which the Director can develop into full scenarios, all connected to the events of Mission Dossier: Project Medusa. These are divided into three sequels and three prequels, so that with the latter, the Director could run some flashback scenarios before the sequels which link to the mysterious organisation that Stamos was connected to. What this organisation is and what it wants is very much up to the Director to decide and develop (unless, of course, the publisher develops a further campaign in the meantime).

Physically, beyond the depictions of the Heroes and major NPCs, Mission Dossier: Project Medusa is not illustrated. Nor are there any maps. The latter should not be too much of an issue, since many of the locations in the scenario will be familiar from all manner of action films. That said, there is nothing to stop the Director from finding her own maps and floorplans. Otherwise, the layout is clean and tidy and effective as outlined earlier. It does need an edit in places though.

Mission Dossier: Project Medusa is exactly what you want in a scenario for an action movie. It is fast paced, there are secrets and betrayals to discover, a mystery to be solved, the world to be saved, and lots and lots of opportunities for the Heroes to be heroic. Of course, this means that there are more than a few clichés of the genre along the way, but they are to be expected and the players should be buying into them as much as they are the cinematic action and chance for their Heroes to look cool. Supported by excellent advice for Director, Mission Dossier: Project Medusa is an entertaining introduction to running and playing Outgunned – Cinematic Action Role Playing Game.

Action Against the Odds

Your rival killed your favourite pet when all you wanted was a quiet life. Your daughter—or even the President’s daughter—has been kidnapped. Terrorists have occupied the New York Stock Exchange and are threatening to blow it up when in reality they are raiding the markets. A train has to keep going because if it drops below a certain speed, bombs will detonate the dangerous chemicals it is transporting. A secret cabal plot against you as you try to uncover hidden truths that will reveal the real history of your nation. A team of superspecialists sets out to pull off the heist of a century by stealing from the wealthiest casino in Macau. A madman holds Chicago hostage with a nuclear bomb. A supervillain threatens world domination with an array of space lasers, supposedly put in orbit to protect against asteroids, but now turned inwards. Any of these hooks could be and possibly have been the plot of an action movie, a film that focuses on fast storylines, furious action, astounding stunts, and incredible tension to deliver a great cinematic experience with a tub of popcorn and a bucket of soda thrown in. They could also be the storylines for any scenario for Outgunned, the cinematic action roleplaying game 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.

Outgunned: Cinematic Action Roleplaying Game continues the wave of Italian roleplaying games reaching the English-speaking market and is now reaching a wider audience thanks to being published by Free League Publishing. Originally published by Two Little Mice following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Outgunned is the roleplaying game of eighties action films which won the Silver Ennie for Best Game and Silver Ennie for Product of the Year in 2024. It is designed to do three things. First, to handle a variety of different action films, from chases and heists to Spy-Fi and hostage situations. Second, to help deliver short action-packed sessions, tending towards one-shots or ‘Shots’, and in keeping with the genre, sequels. Third, to play fast and easy—Outgunned only uses six-sided dice—and to encourage action, so that whilst the Heroes will constantly face terrible odds and be hounded by enemies from start to finish, the game mechanics favour success, with failure only a setback, a chance for the Heroes to take a breath, and come back to put the villain’s chief lieutenant down, the villain himself in handcuffs, and save the day, if not the world.

In keeping with the genre, there is a certain snappiness to Outgunned. It wants to get the players and the Director to the play as quickly as possible, so it quickly defines what its themes are, where and when the roleplaying game is set, and what its core tenets are. The themes are ‘Doing the right thing’, ‘Alone against all’, ‘Spirit of sacrifice’, ‘Revenge and forgiveness’, ‘Friends as your real family’, and ‘The broken system’, and whilst Outgunned takes its inspiration from a wide variety of action films, it is set somewhen between the eighties and the early noughties, in a world that looks exactly like own, but a whole lot cooler and in surround sound. The roleplaying game’s pillars of action are that ‘Action never stops’, ‘Like at the movies’, and ‘You don’t know everything’, whilst as a Real Hero, a Player Character is ‘Someone with a mission’, will ‘Live dangerously’, and is ‘One of the good guys’. If the Director and the players are fans of action films—and obviously, for Outgunned, they should be—most of this will be familiar, but the roleplaying game distils it all down into the core essence of the genre and makes it easy to grasp.

A Player Character or Hero in Outgunned is defined by a Role and a Trope, Attributes, Skills, and Feats. The Role of which there are ten—the Commando, Fighter, Ace, Agent, Face, Nobody, Brain, Sleuth, Criminal, and Spy—defines what the Hero’s job is or was, gives him a choice of Catchphrases (the use of which can earn a Hero points of ‘Spotlight’) and Flaws, set points to assign to Attributes and Skills, and some Feats and Gear to choose from. Every Role is given a two-page spread that includes a list of the films where that Role has appeared. Tropes represent an archetype, such as ‘Bad to the Bone’, ‘Jerk with a Heart of Gold’, or ‘Vigilante’, and provide more points to assign to Attributes and Skills, plus a Feat to choose. The five Attributes are Brawn, Nerves, Smooth, Focus, and Crime and they are rated between one and three as the roleplaying game’s skills. Lastly, Feats typically allow a player to reroll his dice under a certain situation, but can have other effects such as giving a Hero more Cash or having useful Contacts, and some may take effect immediately or require a whole turn of game play. Some also require a player to expend Adrenaline.

To create a Hero, a player simply selects a Role and a Trope. From these, he assigns the points to Attributes and Skills as directed, and chooses Feats, Catchphrases, Gear, and so on. He also receives two extra points to assign to Skills. The process is quick and easy, and adjustments can also be made for age too.

Name: Ottilie Harsholm
Role: The Brain Trope: Neurotic Geek
Age: Adult
Catchphrase: “Have I ever been wrong before?”
Flaw: “Without my glasses, I am nearly blind.”

Brawn 2: Endure 1 Fight 3 Force 1 Stunt 1
Nerves 2: Cool 2 Drive 3 Shoot 1 Survival 1
Smooth 2: Flirt 1 Leadership 2 Speech 3 Style 1
Focus 3: Detect 3 Fix 3 Heal 2 Know 3
Crime 3: Awareness 2 Dexterity 3 Stealth 3 Streetwise 1

Feats: Hacker, Intuition, Outsmart
Gear: Portable Computer, notebook, pencil

Mechanically, Outgunned is player-facing, so the Director never has to roll and uses what it calls the ‘Director’s Cut’. At its core, it plays a little like Yahtzee, but from there it very quickly escalates both the action and the urgency. What a player is trying to roll is matches on a pool of six-sided dice, which can be numbers if standard dice or symbols if using the Outgunned dice. The base number of dice is equal to an Attribute plus a Skill, but can be modified by gear and any Conditions that a Hero might have suffered. Most rolls will be Action Rolls, made when a player wants his Hero to act, whilst Reaction rolls are made to avoid a bad situation. A player is free to choose the Attribute and Skill he wants to combine for an Action roll, but the Director dictates them for a Reaction roll.

The difficulty for any task is the number of matches required. ‘Basic’ difficulty requires two matches, ‘Critical’ difficulty requires three matches, ‘Extreme’ difficulty requires four matches, and ‘Impossible’ difficulty requires five matches. Better results than those required can give better outcomes, primarily in gaining extra actions, but if a player rolls six or more matches, then his Hero has hit the ‘Jackpot!’ and he gets to be the Director and narrate how amazing his Hero is. A player only needs to roll the dice when it matters and, in most situations, the difficulty is ‘Critical’. This is the standard roll, but beyond this, the ‘Director’s Cut’ escalates the difficulty that a player and his Hero has to overcome mechanically to reflect the challenge that the Hero has to overcome in the story. It also escalates the consequences.

In Outgunned there is no failure, only the consequences of a temporary setback. In general, a Hero should fail with style, whether that is to ‘Roll with the Punches’, ‘Pay the Price’, or ‘Take the Hard Road’. In the next step up, the difficulty can be doubled, requiring the player to roll two sets of matches to fully succeed. If he manages to roll only one of the matches, he will be unable to avoid one of the consequences. However, if the situation and the roll is classed as ‘Dangerous’, then the consequences are that the Hero loses points of Grit, the equivalent of Hit Points in Outgunned. The greater the difficulty of the failed roll, the greater the loss of Grit. It is possible to do Damage Control to reduce the loss of Grit, but every Hero has twelve boxes for Grit on his character sheet. When the eighth box—the ‘Bad Box’—is filled in, the Hero gains a Condition and when the ‘Hot Box’, the last box, is filled in, Hero gains two Adrenaline. Losing all of his Grit puts a Hero on the Death Roulette, ‘spinning’ and rolling against it, on a failure causing him to be ‘Left for Dead’ and on a success, getting back up, but loading up the Death Roulette with another lethal round and making it difficult to survive next time. A Hero can come back after being ‘Left for Dead’, but with a scar and a preposterous story of his survival, and then only at the appropriate point in the storyline. Grit is recovered through rest or when the Hero is allowed to ‘Catch a Break’ or ‘After a Shot’.

Beyond Dangerous rolls, when a Hero’s life or the situation is on the line, a roll can be a ‘Gamble’. For each one rolled after the last roll, the Hero loses a point of Grit.

Of course, the audience of an action film really wants to see the Hero succeed and so does Outgunned. If a player rolls at least one Basic match and needs more, he can reroll any dice that did not match. If this fails, one of the previously rolled matches is lost. Many Feats grant a free reroll which does not carry this penalty. Either way, the player is encouraged to reroll because it increases the chances of his Hero succeeding. Lastly, if a player still does not have enough matches or the right sort of matches, he can go ‘All In’ and reroll any other dice not part of a match. However, this carries with it the risk of losing all of the matches rolled if the result does not improve the player’s roll and this is discouraged as an act of desperation.

A Hero also has Adrenalin. For one Adrenalin, a player can add a single die to a roll or activate a particular Feat, and for a total of six Adrenalin, gain the Spotlight. Adrenaline can be regained for essentially good play. A Hero can hold three Spotlights, which can be spent to gain an Extreme Success, to save a friend who is on the Death Roulette, remove a Condition, save a Ride—a vehicle of any kind, about to be destroyed, and so on. A Hero can gain a Spotlight with the appropriate use of his Catchphrase or Flaw, and can keep a spent Spotlight with the flip of a coin.

Combat uses these mechanics, but since the Director never rolls in Outgunned, alternates back and forth between the Heroes’ Action Turn and the Heroes’ Reaction Turn. In an Action Turn, the Hero takes a full Action Roll and a Quick Action, such as reloading, whilst in the Reaction Turn all rolls are ‘Dangerous’ rolls. Extra successes work as a counter and inflict Grit loss on the Enemy. Brawls and gunfights are covered in a surprisingly speedy fashion, as is Gear and Cash which are kept simple, and in the case of Cash, abstract.

Enemies are divided into three types—Goons, Bad Guys, and Bosses, to which a Director can add a Template and Feats. Enemies are simply defined. Goons require a ‘Basic’ success to hit and defend against; Bad Guys require a ‘Critical’ success to hit and defend against; and Bosses require a ‘Critical’ or an ‘Extreme’ success to hit and defend against. All just have Grit and not the Death Roulette that each Hero has. Each Enemy Type is given five Templates to apply, so Template 1 for the Bad Guys might be armed hooligans, two well-trained agents, or a large guard dog, whilst Template 5 is a team of ninja, the perfect shot assassin, or a pair of big bruisers. Goons might have only a single Feat, but Bad Guys and Bosses get a lot more. Feats might be ‘Automatic Weapons’, ‘Mob’, ‘Armoured’, ‘Shotguns’, ‘Flamethrower’, ‘Rage’, and more. In addition, some Enemies can have a Weak Spot, and can also be the environment as much as the actual Enemy. For example, an unsafe structure nearby that a Hero can knock over on an Enemy to inflict damage or the Enemy can be drawn into a trap, enabling all of the Heroes to skip their next Reaction Turn.

Chases use the same alternating Action Turn and Reaction Turn as combat. This plays out over a Need Track, between six and eighteen boxes in length, and represents what the Heroes want to get out of the Chase, whether to flee from an Enemy or to chase after them. The Heroes’ Ride will have a Speed of between zero and three, but it can be increased through the Heroes’ actions and decreased by the Enemies actions. At the end of the Action Turn, the Need Track is filled in with the current Speed, but if it is not yet completely filled in, the Reaction Turn occurs, and so on. As with combat, the ‘Director’s Cut’ includes plenty of ways in which the Director can make a chase more challenging.

For the Director, there is advice on running Outgunned and creating content to run. This focuses on the structure around an ‘Establishing Shot’, a ‘Turning Point’, and a ‘Showdown’, and what aspects of the game are triggered within each. For example, the Villain cannot be defeated until the ‘Showdown’ and prior to that, rolls against the Villain carry a penalty and Spotlight cannot be used to thwart a Villain. There is decent advice on how to define both the villain, including his weak spot, and supporting characters, and there is also a tool given for the Director to track the tension over the course of a mission. This is Heat, which starts at a level equal to the number of Heroes and can rise as high as twelve. It will go up at the ‘Turning Point’ and the ‘Showdown’, when a Hero is ‘Left for Dead’, the Heroes suffer a stinging defeat, and so on. As it rises, it complicates the Heroes’ progress by adding a Lethal Bullet to their Death Roulettes, giving Enemies another Feat, and then adding another Lethal Bullet to their Death Roulettes as well as granting them a point of Adrenalin. The Director can also use the Heat Track to trigger events in her campaign.

It is in the middle of this advice that the players and their Heroes are given another resource beyond Adrenalin and Spotlight—and it is the most powerful. ‘Plan B’ is a group resource and comes in three types. These are ‘Bullet’, ‘Backup’, and ‘Bluff’. Each can only be used once in the whole of a campaign and only one can be used per session. Each is really powerful and gives the Heroes an immediate advantage that will get them out of the dire situation they find themselves in. It seems odd to have this at the back of the book where the players are not going to find it and the Director definitely has to tell them about it. In addition, there is advice on running heists, the Heroes creating a Master Plan that they can attempt to follow, and the Director can react to. This is the most specific advice that Outgunned gives about a type of plot.

However, the advice is broad, and it talks about campaigns rather than individual missions. The advice can be applied to individual missions, but a Director looking for advice on how to create her own missions is going to be disappointed. There is not any real analysis of the genre that she can take and adapt to create her own content, the assumption being that both Director and players will have watched and studied a lot of eighties and nineties action films. Some plot breakdowns and some analysis would really have bolstered the advice the Director and overall, what is given, especially with its focus on campaign, is underwhelming.

As well as a filmography and all of the roleplaying game’s forms, the section for the Director ends with a sample scenario. This is ‘Race Against Time’ is the ‘Introductory Shot’ involving a hunt for a MacGuffin which involves lots of fights, a chase, and an exploding aeroplane! It is an entertaining affair that can be played through in a single session and there is actually some good advice, suggesting manoeuvres that the Heroes might take in the various situations they find themselves in throughout the scenario, given in the margins alongside the main plot. The scenario is intended as a lead into Project Medusa, which is fine, but what is not fine is that the scenario is included in Outgunned – Hero to Zero, which might leave the Director without anything to run from the core book for the roleplaying game if she has run the quick-start.

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

Outgunned is a book and roleplaying game that makes you want to play or run an action movie by presenting easy to grasp character archetypes and at its core, a very basic dice mechanic that is backed up by ways to avoid having the Heroes fail. In this way, it emulates its genre. However, it complicates things by making rolls more complex as the stakes grow higher—not too more complex, but just that bit more complex—so that it ratchets up the mechanical demands in time with the tension. This too, emulates its genre, but does slow game play down, if only a little, at that time of tension. Where Outgunned truly disappoints is in the lack of analysis of the genre which would have helped inform the Director and the underwhelming advice for the Director which could have been better in helping her create and run Shots rather than focusing on campaigns.

For the Director and her players who know their eighties and nineties action movies, Outgunned: Cinematic Action Roleplaying Game delivers on what it promises—the means to run intense and action-packed stories of cinematic thrills and spills.

Unseasonal Activities: Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game

It is not Christmas until Hans Gruber has fallen from the executive floor of Nakatomi Plaza to his death on the ground below. In Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game, you do not only get to make sure that Hans Gruber falls from the executive floor of Nakatomi Plaza to his death on the ground below every Christmas, but also very time you play Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game. Published by The Op Games, Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game is the board game adaptation of the 1988 anti-heist thriller directed by John McTiernan and starring Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, Bonnie Bedelia, and Reginald VelJohnson. Designed for two to four players, aged fifteen and over, and playable in sixty to ninety minutes, Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game is an asymmetrical board game in which one player takes the role of New York detective John McClane and up to three other players take the role of the Thieves attempting to rob the Nakatomi corporation of $640 million in bearer bonds. For the players who control the Thieves, the game is co-operative. The game is played in three acts on three different sections of the board, the board unfolding to reflect this, and both John McClane and the Thieves having different objectives to achieve in each act. In general, John McClane is trying to achieve his objectives to get to the next floor and the Thieves are not only trying to stop him, but also working together to unlock the vault holding the bearer bonds. John McClane wins if he get to Act III and kill Hans Gruber, but the Thieves win at any time if John McClane dies—by running out of Action Cards, or they break into the vault.

Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game comes with a double-sided board game, eighty Action Cards for John McClane, forty Action Cards for the Thieves, twenty-five Lock cards, a John McClane Player Board, Lock Tracker Card, figures for John McClane, Hans Gruber, and seven Thieves, a Combat Die, and then various cubes, tokens, and tiles, plus the rulebook. The board depicts three different floors of Nakatomi Plaza, one for each act. Each floor is marked with spots where Objective Tokens can be found for both John McClane and the Thieves. Both will have to search for these in order to complete objectives which vary from act to act. In Act I, John McClane must ‘Find the Machine Gun’, ‘Find the Radio’, and ‘Acquire the Shoes (that don’t fit)’. In Act II, he must ‘Find the Detonators and Explosives’, ‘Drop the Detonators and Explosives down the Elevator Shaft’, and ‘Kill a Thief, and throw him out a window’. In Act III, he must ‘Scare the Hostages off of the Roof’, ‘Swing on the Fire Hose’, and of course, ‘Kill Hans Gruber’. Complete the objectives in each act and John McClane and the game can progress to the next.

Whereas the Thieves have one objective that does not vary from act to act and then objectives that do. The ‘Draw Blood’ objective does not vary from act to act, the Thieves constantly attempting to punch or shoot John McClane. In Act I, their other objectives are to ‘Track McClane’ and ‘Capture 3 Hostages’. In Act II, they ‘Shoot the Glass’ and ‘Fire the Rocket’. In Act III, they are ‘Open the Sixth Lock’ and ‘Trigger the Roof Explosion’. Most of John McClane’s objectives will grant him specific bonuses, whereas the Thieves’ objectives grant extra attempts to unlock the Vault. All of the objectives match things that happen in the film, whether done by John McClane or by the Thieves.

The John McClane player receives a deck of Action Cards per act, but the cards he plays are carried over into the next act, whereas those he discards are not. Thus, he needs to be doubly careful in what cards he decides to play, whether for effect in the current act or subsequent acts. An Action card will give him options to Move, Sneak, Punch, Shoot, Support, Shove, and Recover. All movement and attacks are orthogonal, not diagonal; any damage done to a Thief kills him, whilst John McClane loses an Action Card and further fulfils the Thieves’ ‘Draw Blood’ action; Shove lets John McClane push a Thief; Recover allows the John McClane player to draw from the discard pile; and Support lets John McClane talk to Sergeant Powell to further fill the ‘Find Radio’ objective, granting a combat bonus when completely filled up. An Action will give John McClane one or more actions, and these can be done in any order. In a round, the John McClane will draw five Action Cards, play three of them and discard the other two. In addition, John McClane can freely use the vents to move around each floor.

The Thief players draw from a shared deck of Action Cards and have five Actions. These are Lock, Move, Punch, Shoot, and Reinforcements. The Reinforcements Action enables the Thief players to return a Thief figure to play if one has been killed. However, this is at the loss of all other actions and it hinders the Thieves’ action to unlock the vault. The Lock Action enables a Thief to cover up a numbered space on the current Vault Lock. The Vault Lock is represented by a series of Lock Vault Cards. Each Lock Vault Card shows a row of four numbers, these being the odd numbers from one to nine. These are arranged in a series of grids, which get increasingly larger as the Thieves crack each Lock, from two-by-four all the way up to four-by-four for the sixth and final Lock.

Each turn, the Thief players will be working together to try and crack the code on each Lock. To do this they try and match the numbers on their played Action Cards to the numbers on the grid. This is done with the highest and lowest on the Action Cards they collectively play to not only match the numbers on the current Lock Vault Cards, but do so for adjacent numbers. These can be horizontal or vertical, but they have to be orthogonal. How they do this plays slightly differently depending on the number of players. With one Thief player, he will draw a separate Action Card, look at its number and place the card face down before playing an Action Card from his hand, also face down, and then turn it over to reveal whether he has a solved part of the Lock Vault Code. With multiple Thief players, the Thief players take in turns to be lead thief. If two Thieves, the lead Thief player will draw an Action Card from the Action deck and show it to the other player before placing it face down. They both then play cards from their hand alongside the face down card. If there are three Thieves, the lead Thief player selects a card from his hand, shows it to the other two Thieves, and then play cards from their hands alongside the face down card. The key here is that the beyond the lead Thief showing the other Thieves the first Action, none of the Thief players communicate with each other. When the cards are revealed, the highest and lowest numbers on the cards are hopefully matched on the Lock Vault Code, whilst the card with the middle value is used to determine the actions for the Thieves that turn.

Breaking open the vault is key for the Thieves to win and whilst it is mainly going on in the background of the film, in Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game, it is moved to fore. It becomes central to play with the secret, semi-co-operative aspect of its play as the Thief players try to communicate effectively with each other using the Action Cards, emphasising how disruptive John McClane becomes in upsetting their plans and distracting them. At the same time, they want to be working towards their own objectives for the bonuses they grant and attempting to stop John McClane from achieving his as well as inflicting as much damage on him as possible.

Meanwhile, as the game progresses, John McClane goes from New York cop in the dark to action-hero-in-the-know as he works out what is going on and gains more and better Action Cards with each subsequent act after the first. At the same time, John McClane’s player needs to be aware of how many Action Cards he has still to play. Lose them all and he will be killed and the Thieves will win.

Physically, Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game is well presented. However, despite being a licensed board game, that only extends to the intellectual property and not the images of the actors. This means that the John McClane, Hans Gruber, and Thief figures are bland in addition to being small, and the artist has had to illustrate the Action Cards in greyscale with lots of silhouettes in black and grey shadows. Yet this works surprisingly well, making Die Hard a black and white film instead of colour and giving it film noir atmosphere. The rulebook is large, but not lengthy, explains everything well and gives good advice as to what both the John McClane and the Thief players have to do.

There is a lot to like about the Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game. It actually feels like you are playing Die Hard with John McClane having to find the radio and talk to Sergeant Powell and feeling better for doing so; the Thieves being able to shoot out the glass in Act II, making it difficult for John McClane to move around because of his lack of shoes, which he has to find (and will be too small); finding a machine gun; and lastly, shoot, punch, and shove Hans Gruber off the roof! On the other side, the Thief players constantly have to think about stopping John McClane at the same time as breaking open the vault and the rules for the latter add further uncertainty because they cannot communicate with each other as effectively as they would like. This comes to the fore with three players as the Thieves and ideally Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game should be played with all three.

Yet as much as the Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game feels like you are playing film it is based on; it feels too much like you are playing the film it is based on. There is no variation in the game from one playthrough to the next. The objectives are always the same and once you have played through it once as John McClane and won and then played through it as the Thieves and won, it becomes less of a game and more of a puzzle because of that lack of variability. Ultimately, despite the incredible theming in Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game which is going to get you cheering as John McClane succeeds and groaning as one more film quote is made, this is a board game you probably only want to play at Christmas.

1984: Conan Unchained!

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, and the new edition of that, Dungeons & Dragons, 2024, in the year of the game’s fiftieth 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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In 1985, TSR, Inc. published the Conan Role-Playing Game, the first of five roleplaying games to be based on the Conan the Barbarian stories of Robert E. Howard. Which means that it is forty years old in 2025, but this was not the first foray into the archetypal Swords & Sorcery genre by the publisher. After all, the Conan the Barbarian stories had always been an influence upon E. Gary Gygax, TSR, Inc., and Dungeon & Dragons, with stats for Conan actually appearing in Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes for the original version of Dungeons & Dragons, which was published in 1976. That though, was unofficial, whereas his appearance in two modules for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition was official. CB1 Conan Unchained! and CB2 Conan Against the Darkness! were both published in 1984 and both were designed for Player Characters of Tenth to Fourteenth Levels and to be played by the four pre-generated Player Characters included in each module, which of course, included Conan amongst their number.

Behind the eye-catching image of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan, CB1 Conan Unchained! provides not only a scenario set within the Hyborian Age, but also an introduction to the setting and the rules to run the scenario using Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. Although the image from the cover was taken from Conan the Barbarian, which was only released two years before, CB1 Conan Unchained! does not use any more images from it and it is not based on its story. Rather, CB1 Conan Unchained! takes its cue from the short stories by Robert E. Howard—‘Queen of the Black Coast’, ‘Red Nails’, and the unfinished ‘The Hall of the Dead’. It is from these stories that Conan himself and two of the three other pre-generated Player Characters come from. Besides Conan, they include Nestor the Gunderman and Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, whilst Juma the Warrior is inspired by later comics. All have weapon proficiencies and secondary skills, whilst Conan has a special ability which means he is very rarely surprised. Conan himself is a Thirteenth Level Fighter and a Seventh Level Thief, Valeria a Tenth Level Fighter and a Ninth Level Thief, Juma a Twelfth Level Fighter, and Nestor the Gunderman a Fourteenth Level Fighter.

One notable addition to all four Player Characters is that of Luck Points. This is the first of several new rules in CB1 Conan Unchained! Conan has twelve of these, Nestor and Juma have ten each, and Valeria has sixteen! These are included because, “Conan is sometimes able to do things beyond the range of the AD&D rules. These impossible actions are part of Conan’s special abilities. It is important for characters to be able to do the same things, so they are given Luck Points.” However, they are not spent by the player per se, but by the Dungeon Master. She is told to encourage the players to have their characters perform “…[H]eroic, amazing, or impossible feats…”, with a player expected to describe what his character is trying to do and the Dungeon Master then adjudicate the cost without the player being told how many Luck Points his character has left. For a single Luck Point, a Player Character can make an extra attack in a round, automatically hit an opponent, climb without falling, leap a chasm, and so on; whilst for two Luck Points, he can knock out a person with fist or weapon, spring back from a trap just in time, and climb while carrying another person; and for three Luck Points, do something heroic beyond the scope of the rules. They cannot be spent on a roll that has already been made, on a Saving Throw, or a Fear Check. Some opponents also have their own Luck Points.

To account for the lack of the Cleric Class in the Hyborian Age and thus the lack of healing magic, a Player Character always heals a single Hit Point per day and Hit Points equal to half the Player Character’s Constitution if he rests for a whole day.

The other major addition is the Fear Factor to found in certain creatures and monsters as well as magic effects and reflect Conan’s own instinctive reaction to the unnatural and things that defy explanation. Whenever a Player Character fails a Fear Check, he is struck dumb momentarily or flees for his life, until he overcomes his fear or is hurt again. Sources of Fear include monsters, spellcasters, and unusual magic items or situations and have a Fear Statistic ranging between one and ten. When a Fear Check is required, the Fear Statistic is multiplied by the Player Character’s Wisdom and the resulting value is rolled against on percentile dice. Succeed and the Player Character is unaffected, but fail and he is filled with fear.

There can be no doubt that the inclusion of Luck Points and Fear Checks are radical changes to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, that certainly in the case of Luck Points take the roleplaying game far beyond what it is normally expected to do. In fact, what the inclusion of Luck Points highlights is that as much as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition is pitched as a roleplaying game of heroic adventures and fantasy, it is actually not as heroic as it could be. Arguably, the fantasy of Conan the Barbarian and the Swords & Sorcery genre is pulp fantasy, but if that is case, then given the fact that Dungeons & Dragons is inspired by Swords & Sorcery, what Luck Points show is that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition cannot do Conan-style, Swords & Sorcery as written without them. And since they encourage roleplaying in a particular style, they are actually the first roleplaying mechanic to appear in Dungeons & Dragons! (As opposed to Inspiration, which appeared in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in 2014!)

In fact, the inclusion of Luck Points in CB1 Conan Unchained! is not only a highly radical design choice for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and TSR, Inc., but also a very modern one. Top Secret: An Espionage Role Playing Game for 3 or more players, ages 12 to adult, published by TSR, Inc. in 1980 included an optional rule for Fame and Fortune Points which enabled a Player Character to overcome a fatal wound. It would be James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service, published in 1983 by Victory Games, that developed the concept fully as Hero Points that could be used to adjust skill rolls, shrug off wounds and even death, and enable the Player Characters to be more heroic. However, in The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game, published by TSR, Inc. in 1984, only offered Player Points, which can only be spent to reduce the severity of a Player Character’s wounds or injuries. It is incongruous that in two roleplaying products from the same publisher and the same designer—David Cook—released in the same year, it is a scenario for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition that is given Luck Points.

If the Luck Points are a good addition, Fear Factor, less so. It is not so much a case of CB1 Conan Unchained! not needing a mechanic for handling fear, but rather a question of whether or not it needs a specific new rule for handling fear. Could not the Saving Throw mechanics of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition be used instead? That said, the Fear Check mechanic is simple and fast.

One other change that CB1 Conan Unchained! makes is to classify its scenes into several types. These are normal, random, and plot encounters. Normal encounters are those typical of an adventure, such as exploring a ruin or attacking a pirate ship, whilst random encounters are there to spice up the action. Plot encounters are scenes in which the Player Characters have to act through with only a limited number of choices in how they can act. The Dungeon Master is advised that they be handled with care lest the players feel forced in their characters’ actions. Unfortunately, ‘plot encounters’ like this were not well received at the time and are still looked at with some disdain, though more so in the case of DL1 Dragons of Despair—which came out the same year as CB1 Conan Unchained!.

The introduction to the Hyborian Age in CB1 Conan Unchained! is short, but informative. It highlights how the countries and peoples of the Hyborian Age are formed of different individual groups, each easily identified and with different attitudes and behaviours. The latter means that is often possible to identify someone in the Hyborian World just by their actions. Steel weapons are available, but armour is rarely more than chain or scale. Monsters like those of Dungeons & Dragons are very rare, with giant beasts and demons, elementals, giants, and golems being common. Magic in the Hyborian Age is practiced, but rare, confined to summoning, illusions, charms, and death spells, so greatly feared. Magical items are even rarer and invariably dangerous to those who wield them, though this does not stop sorcerers hunting for both them and dusty tomes of magic.

The scenario on both sides of the narrow Sea of Vilayet and opens with the adventurers as mercenaries in the employ of the Khan of Turan, hired to put down a rebellion by Kustafa, the governor of a city who has refused to pay the taxes that are due. However, a strange magical attack by darkness and shadows finds the army they were part of destroyed and the adventurers on the run. This is the first of the scenario’s four Plot Encounters, the second following close on its heels as the Player Characters are captured by the Mongel Horde-like Kozaki nomads who plan sell them to Stygian slavers. The problem with this Plot Encounter is that the Player Characters have to be captured for the scenario to proceed and given that this is at the beginning of the scenario, they have a lot of Luck Points to spend. Now the nomads do use lariats to capture them, but it is possible for the players to burn through an awful lot of their characters’ Luck Points before that happens and this is right at the start of the scenario.

The Player Characters are not expected to escape, but to prove themselves worthy of being one of the Kozaki and then over a series of events make themselves popular, and eventually, challenge the hetman of the group. There is a good mix of events and encounters to throw at the Player Characters throughout this process and they are given plenty of opportunity to prove themselves. There is even an encounter when a rival to the post of hetman attempts to assassinate a Player Character who looks like he is vying for the position. Of course, it also possible for the Player Characters to escape, but it is not nearly as interesting as what the scenario presents. Whether or not the Player Characters escape, or they become part of the Kozaki, they will in the third Plot Encounter of the scenario run into a female NPC. She will reveal herself as Costhiras, the mistress of the Khan of Turan, who was visiting the city that he sent the army that the Player Characters were part of to recapture it after it rose in rebellion and stopped paying taxes. She tells them that Kustafa, the governor of the city did not do this willingly. He has fallen under the influence of Bhir-Vedi, an evil sorcerer who searches for her still—and to enforce that fact, she is attacked by an Invisible Stalker that instant!

Costhiras begs for the Player Characters to help her and offers to guide them to The Citadel of Bhir-Vedi (or they can follow her if she was snatched by the Invisible Stalker). Either way, this leads them to travel with a band of pirates lead by a somewhat tiresome pirate captain (though he does fight with a sword blade attached to the steel cap on the stump of his wrist and if desperate, can fire it on a spring), but eventually the Player Characters will get to the other side the Sea of Vilayet and the entrance to The Citadel of Bhir-Vedi. There is a short maze-like cavern to navigate before coming upon Bhir-Vedi’s tower, a fairly standard sorcerer’s tower by any measure. There are a fair number of traps to avoid, mostly requiring a check to see if the Player Characters are surprised before they can spend Luck Points, and there is the strong possibility of them being captured after being put to sleep and then waking up to find themselves chained atop the tower ready to be sacrificed to some god or other by Bhir-Vedi. Hopefully, they will have retained enough Luck Points to break their chains (or at least make a Bend Bars/Lift Gates roll)! And after that? Enough points to kick Bhir-Vedi off the top of the tower!

Physically, CB1 Conan Unchained! is disappointing. It looks good, with good art and cartography, but the editing is poor with names constantly changing and inconsistent descriptions.

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CB1 Conan Unchained! was reviewed by Steve Hampshire in the ‘Game Reviews’ section of Imagine No. 24 (March, 1985). He said, “The module itself also has some uniquely ‘Conan’ features. Normal AD&D monsters are almost totally replaced by various human opponents and potential opponents. Surprisingly, some of these are good enough to challenge Conan! The plot is simple and rather derivative, but it takes in some interesting settings and encounters. For most part it plays well, despite niggles like a ship that keeps changing its name, and monsters using their useless wings to fly into attack.” He concluded his review by saying, “The mood of this module is different form the normal run of AD&D material, and the players and referee really need to get into the swing of the thing. It helps if one is familiar with the Conan books or film. This scenario is good for introducing the characters, but stronger plotlines will be needed of there is to be series.”

Rick Swan reviewed CB1 Conan Unchained! in the ‘Capsule Reviews’ in The Space Gamer Number 73 (March/April, 1985). Of the new rules—the Fear Factor and Luck Points—he said, “D&D purists may freak, but the rules work and add to the heroic feel of the setting. Fans of R.E. Howard will happy to know that Cook has approached the source material with considerable respect and that Conan Unchained is generally consistent with the Hyborian world we all known and love.” However, he added that, “The basic problem is that Conan isn’t a particularly good choice for the D&D system. Compared to most D&D settings, Conan’s world is pretty barren. There’s no magic or interesting settings to speak off, and the adventure is nothing special (the characters are captured by slavers, negotiate their freedom, and rescue a fair maiden from a nasty castle).” He concluded that, “Conan Unchained can be played as part of a regular D&D campaign without Conan and associates, but what’s the point? There are plenty of better roleplaying modules available from TSR and elsewhere. Conan and D&D go together like peanut butter and tuna fish – it can be done, but you can bet there’s going to be a funny taste.”

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CB1 Conan Unchained! suffers from several problems. Most obviously, if you going to play it, who plays Conan and why would you want play anyone else? Second, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition does not feel right for it and is not right for it, as evidenced by the inclusion of Luck Points which enables the heroic feats that Conan calls for and which Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition is not designed to do. In fact, what it highlights is how staid the design to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition was by 1984. Third, how poorly plotted it is. The adventure does not really start until the Player Characters get captured, so why does that have to be played out and the players waste their characters’ Luck Points? Then the sequence with the pirate captain is tedious, designed to barb the Player Characters into action. The plot really is most straightforward. Yet there are flashes of excitement to found in CB1 Conan Unchained! The sequence in which the Player Characters free themselves from the nomads and then take over is actually quite fun and the inclusion of Luck Points encourage the players to be a little more inventive than Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition necessarily might be in normal play.

Ultimately, CB1 Conan Unchained! feels rushed and underdeveloped, an attempt to bring fans of Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and fans of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition to Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer, but is not really good enough to attract either and ultimately, satisfies neither.