Robbing the Reich of Rommel

Published by Arc Dream Publishing, Fox Hunt: A Godlike adventure is a short scenario for one of the best roleplaying games to come out of the 2001 and 2002 boom in World War II roleplaying games. This is Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946, a game in which the player characters are Talents, members of the Allied forces who have been ‘blessed’ with an amazing ability such as lowering the temperature around him, open any lock by pointing a finger, or simply picking up a Tiger tank throwing it at the enemy! The player characters are soldiers first before being trained to use their Talent effectively in battle, but as more and more of them appear, fewer and fewer lack the experience of using their Talent in battle, especially against the Übermenschen, the Nazi Talents who are part of the SS and who many of them revel in their powers and the Aryan ideals of the ‘Super Race’. There is also the matter of each Talent’s Will, for it is his Will that fuels a Talent’s powers and his ability to cancel out another Talent’s powers that can be lost in a contest of Wills with an enemy Talent. This is the situation that TOG-151 (Talent Operation Group-151) finds itself in the very early morning of June 6th, 1944 as it parachutes into enemy-occupied France.

Fox Hunt: A Godlike adventure originally appeared in issue #5 of Gygax Magazine, the late lamented magazine published by TSR, Inc.. It is the fourth in the publisher’s Pantheon line of digest-sized set of adventures reminiscent of the early days of role-playing, which also included the fantasy setting, Gnatdamp; They All Died at the International Space Station, for use with Metamorphosis Alpha; and Operation Rendezvous Oasis, for use with Top Secret. Like the other entries in the line, Fox Hunt comes as a digest-sized book containing the adventure itself and a seperate fold-out A3 sheet which serves as a ‘Godlike Boot Camp’. The sheet folds out to give the base rules for running Godlike and the six members of TOG-151, ready to play. What this means is that Fox Hunt can be run without reference to the core Godlike rulebook.

The title of Fox Hunt suggests the mission assigned to TOG-151. Its members are to drop into France on the morning of D-Day and take advantage of the poor reaction to the invasion upon the part of the occupying forces in France. With the forces under his command in disarray, Rommel is racing back to Normandy after having celebrated his wife’s birthday in Germany—and the Allies know which route he is taking. TOG-151 is assigned the mission of ambushing his convoy, kidnapping him, and returning him to England. This is a challenging mission, not least because the TOG will need to avoid the local soldiery—initially the French Milice or militia, rather than the German garrison—if it is to make contact the French Resistance. Their help is required if the TOG is to execute its mission.

The problem with a lot of military adventures, especially commando missions like this one, is that they can be very linear and straightforward, and so it is with Fox Hunt. Yet some solid hooks and wrinkles have been thrown in along the way to make things interesting. These begin with a scene setting introduction when the members of the TOG have the opportunity to establish themselves as members of the squad, and continue with the interaction with the members of the French Resistance cell, including rivalry and romance. The ambush and its consequences are also interesting in that the man in the car might not be Rommel himself—perhaps a situation similar to that of General Bernard Montgomery and M. E. Clifton James—and the Übermenschen assigned as his bodyguards might have divided loyalties. If the player characters succeed, then the rewards are incredible and the members of TOG-151 have a tale to dine out on for the rest of their lives! That said, the scenario does not shy away from the consequences of the TOG’s mission on the local population.

The members of TOG-151 include ‘Broadway Jay’, the commanding officer, a small town lawyer capable of stepping out of harm’s way; ‘Suds’, a dentist who can create a forcefield shaped like a soap bubble; ‘FUBAR’, a New York taxi driver who can telekinetically throw objects; ‘Plaster’, a salesman with the gift of the gab who can regenerate his wounds; ‘Mark Two 2’, a hyper machinist who can also shoot flames from his hands; and ‘Boston’, an ex-sailor who fly at near the speed of sound. These are all decent characters and they exhibit a good mix of Talent abilities, not always something that has occurred in previous releases for Godlike. One of the characters is not quite correct and a corrected version has been provided here. All of the Talents were created using the Godlike: Talent Power Generator, including those of the Übermenschen, so one issue is that there is repeition in talent abilities between the Allied Talents and the Übermenschen.

Another issue is that the ‘Godlike Boot Camp’ is cramped, despite it folding out to the size of an A3 sheet of paper. This is particularly so in the case of the pre-generated Talents, whose details are just a little too small to read easily. Otherwise, the Fox Hunt book is an easy read with decent illustrations and nice maps. The Übermenschen are better presented, but they do need an edit to be easier to read.

Fox Hunt: A Godlike adventure works as a one-shot and will work as a convention scenario. It works well with the pre-generated Talents provided, but there is nothing to stop a group of players playing it with their existing characters or ones they create for this scenario. The scenario presents a highly memorable situation and some good opportunities for roleplaying, combining to make Fox Hunt: A Godlike adventure a challenging and enjoyable one-shot or addition to a Godlike campaign.

1974: Original Dungeons & Dragons

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

-oOo-

The truth is that this is one review that I never expected to write. After all, in the fifteen years of my being a published reviewer I have never had the reason to write this review. Yet surely its existence and that 2014 marks the fortieth anniversary of its publication—the very reason why the Reviews from R’lyeh anniversary series is being written—means that it should be written. The other reason I never expected to write this review was I did not own a copy of the game in question, but that became a possibility in 2013 with the publication by Wizards of the Coast of the Original Dungeons & Dragons Premium Reprint. So this then is a review of both—not just the aforementioned Original Dungeons & Dragons Premium Reprint, but also Original Dungeons & Dragons.

In publishing the Original Dungeons & Dragons Premium Reprint, Wizards of the Coast has taken the contents of the 1974 Dungeons & Dragons White Box—‘ Volume 1: Men & Magic’, ‘Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure’, and ‘Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures’ and added to it the supplements that came after it—‘Supplement I: Greyhawk’, ‘Supplement II: Blackmoor’, ‘Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry’, and ‘Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes’, plus a complete set of very lovely polyhedral dice. All placed in a deep wooden presentation box etched with the famous fire-breathing dragon ampersand. The individual books themselves are beautifully presented, with just a little tidying up internally, and the use of the marbled texture for their covers, exactly as the original books in 1974.

As a complete package, the Original Dungeons & Dragons Premium Reprint is beautifully presented, but make no mistake, this is a piece of gaming history, a piece of gaming ephemera. There can be no doubt that the contents of this lovely wooden box can be played—after all, the original roleplayers did so for many years with the copies of the Original Dungeons & Dragons they bought in the 1970s—but why would you? Putting aside the fact that there are better versions of Dungeons & Dragons and the like available to play, the Original Dungeons & Dragons Premium Reprint is a collector’s item—and very nice it is too.

In reviewing the Original Dungeons & Dragons, we are concerned only with the three books that appeared in the White Box, for only they appeared in 1974. Thus this review is limited to—‘Volume 1: Men & Magic’, ‘Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure’, and ‘Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures’. The starting point of course, is Chainmail, the miniatures campaign rules published by TSR out of which grew Dungeons & Dragons. Its influence upon Dungeons & Dragons is profound and cannot be underestimated—indeed this influence would arguably hinder the development of the game for over a quarter of a century, until the advent of Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition in 2000. Despite owning a copy of Original Dungeons & Dragons, it was not complete as Chainmail was required to handle combat, though an alternative combat system better allowed for man-to-man or man-to-monster fights, using a set of tables that will look familiar to anyone who played Basic Dungeons & Dragons or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. What this means is that Original Dungeons & Dragons lived up its subtitle, ‘Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures’.

Characters options are limited to three Classes—Fighting-Man, Magic-User, and Cleric—and four races—Human, Dwarf, Elf, and Halflings (note, the 1974 version of Original Dungeons & Dragons had the Hobbit instead of Halfling, but that was before the Tolkien estate got litigious). The possibility of playing other character types is suggested, but left for the referee to develop. Much like the later Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Basic Dungeons & Dragons, Halflings and Dwarfs are essentially Fighting-Men (Fighters) with Level caps on how far they can progress, whereas the Elf was allowed to switch between the Fighting-Man and the Magic-User whilst still under the limits of a Level cap. Other differences include there just being the three simple Alignments—Law, Neutral, and Chaos; and attributes primarily providing an Experience Point bonus depending upon a character’s class—Strength for Fighting-Men, Wisdom for Clerics, and so on, though Constitution provides a Hit Point bonus and Dexterity a missile fire to hit bonus. Nevertheless, a character still looks very similar to those that would come in later versions of the game—the same six attributes—Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma; and Armour Class runs from ‘none’ (AC 9) down to ‘plate & shield’ (AC 2).

Another oddity is the under use of Alignment. It is only important for the Cleric Class, limiting the type of structure that the Cleric can build when he gets to high enough level and access to some spells. At this nascent stage of the hobby, Clerics do not worship a specific deity—such information would not be available until the release of ‘Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes’ and then later, Deities & Demi-Gods for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Of course, the one way in which Alignment affected every character, regardless of their Class, was what magic items they could use. The inclusion of Alignment seems superfluous here, but much like the rest of Original Dungeons & Dragons, it lays the foundation for one of the elements that have underpinned Dungeons & Dragons ever since.

The spells listed in ‘Volume 1: Men & Magic’ are all generic in nature. So what is included is Charm Person, Wizard Lock, Locate Object, Turn Sticks to Snakes, and so on, but not named spells like Bigby's Grasping Hand or Leomund's Tiny Hut. These of course would make an appearance in later versions of Dungeons & Dragons. Still, the spells are limited in Original Dungeons & Dragons so that Magic-User needs to be able to cast Third Level spells before he can cast any that do physical damage and the Cleric’s spells are very much focused on healing and support.

Perhaps the strangest thing in ‘Volume 1: Men & Magic’ is its given ‘Scope’. It is suggested that a campaign can handle between four and fifty players, but that the recommended referee to player ratio is one to twenty! Now I have played in a campaign—D1-2 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth, D3 Vault of the Drow, and Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits—with eleven or twelve players, but not twenty! By modern standards, no Dungeon Master could be expected to give attention to fifty players, let alone twenty and give them the time to tell their stories.

Nicely though, the Foreword to ‘Volume 1: Men & Magic’ prefigures the famous ‘Appendix N’ in the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It suggests Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian stories, Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales, Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser adventures as inspiration. These suggestions point to a more pulpy inspiration, but what is curious is an absence from the list—J.R.R. Tolkien. So no The Hobbit and no The Lord of the Rings. Their later inclusion as inspiration would arguably make Dungeons & Dragons a much drier game, but their influence is very, very much in evidence here in terms of the Classes and Races available to play, and then equally, if not more so, in later editions of Dungeons & Dragons.

Physically, ‘Volume 1: Men & Magic’ is ill-organised. Concepts such as Levels are detailed after equipment and encumbrance has been discussed, so by modern standards, there is no progression of subjects in a step-by-step process. Fortunately, this book is short enough to make flipping back and forth anything other than a challenge. 

‘Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure’ lists some sixty or so entries in terms of foes, from Kobold and Goblins to signature creatures such as Green Slime and Purple Worm. Their main stats are listed in one large table with descriptions given later. These rarely amount to more than a paragraph or two, and only Dragons receiving as much comparative attention as they would in later editions of the game. This varying degree of attention feels unwieldy and unfair, so that Goblins and Kobolds are just there to butcher, but Dragons can be treated with, even subdued, which to be honest, feels very Tolkienesque. Sadly what is missing from this reprint is the citing of sources that appeared in the original version of Original Dungeons & Dragons. So no listing Tolkien as the source for Orcs, Wights, Spectres, or Rocs, and so on. This is for copyright reasons of course, but it is disappointing. The list of magical items and treasures reads like a ‘what’s what’ to come in future editions.

Where ‘Volume 1: Men & Magic’ gives you what you played, ‘Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure’ gives you things to fight and things to find, ‘Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures’ tells you how to play. It starts out with what might well be the first example of a dungeon before the publication of ‘Temple of the Frog’ in ‘Supplement II: Blackmoor’, and to be blunt, it is a terrible example. The problem is that its focus is upon mapping tricks designed to confuse and exasperate the player characters as they explore it, rather than on monsters and other threats, which feel lumped together. There is advice on stocking these underworlds with monsters and with a different treasure system, but more interesting is what is the very first example of play. It again betrays the origins of Original Dungeons & Dragons as a wargame, for its focus is entirely upon the Referee and Caller—the latter a role that would persist well into Advanced Dungeons & Dragons—with no room for roleplaying or the input for the other players. The result is a rather drab experience, with not even the prospect of combat to enliven things up or give a sense of threat. It is just a little too mechanical.

Where Original Dungeons & Dragons suggested Chainmail as the means to handle combat, for wilderness travel it also suggests something else. This is Outdoor Survival, the 1972 Avalon Hill game. Here also is the first mention of both classic locations for Dungeons & Dragons, Greyhawk and Blackmoor, hinting at their contents, but not detailing them. They feel oddly rife with possibilities, but are here left undeveloped with only the map of the Outdoor Survival game for the Referee to go on. There is little advice as to how to create maps beyond the use of the game, and it feels oddly underdeveloped. Beyond this, ‘Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures’ covers naval and aerial combat, hiring specialists, and so on. One notable rule is the ‘Angry Villager Rule’, one that suggests that should the player characters get out of line then the Referee should set the angry villagers/city watchmen/thieves’ guild members upon them. Not only will this happen, then the player characters cannot resist it. How I bet that some Dungeon Masters wish that this rule was still in effect!

Rounding out ‘Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures’ is a short section on healing. Vitally important in play, but lost at the very end of the rules. More importantly overall, the Afterword states that much has been glossed over, that Original Dungeons & Dragons contains only the essentials and that where any further trimmings are needed, then they will have to be added by the Referee and his players. There are of course undoubted omissions from Original Dungeons & Dragons—too many to list—evidence of that obviously showing in subsequent editions of Dungeons & Dragons.

Physically, these three booklets are pleasingly presented. The organisation is terrible and the pen and ink illustrations are, to be frank, terrible too.

Ultimately, this is not a review that can really be written without the hindsight of forty years of roleplaying development and the race for the development of Dungeons & Dragons to catch up. Understandably, there is a rawness to Original Dungeons & Dragons. It is after all, the blueprint from which all other RPGs would spring. This means that it is not perfect and there are elements, bad habits even, that it would take a quarter of a century for Dungeons & Dragons to overcome as a roleplaying game. Arguably, this is not even the first roleplaying game, since the term would not appear at the time of its publication, but would be coined a year later in a review in White Dwarf. It is still too much of a wargame and an unforgiving one at that. A fascinating piece of history that was perhaps a step towards the first real roleplaying game, but however innovative it was in 1974, it was not quite there yet. As radical as Original Dungeons & Dragons was in 1974, perhaps it is too raw a game to be playable by modern standards.

Cthulhu Classics III

These days Grenadier Models, Inc. is better known for its miniatures, whether for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons or Call of Cthulhu. What is oft forgotten is that the company also branched out into becoming a publisher. These included the adventure Cloudland and the bestiary, the Monster Manuscript, both lesser known releases for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; Raid on Rajallapor for Flying Buffalo’s Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes RPG; Disappearance on Aramat for GDW’s Traveller RPG; and of course, The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island for Chaosium, Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu. As with the previous entries in the 'Cthulhu Classics' series, spoilers abound in this retrospective.

The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island was published in 1984. This was a year in which four of the eight titles published for Call of Cthulhu were not released by Chaosium, Inc. This should not diminish Chaosium’s output by any means—after all, those four included the classic campaigns, Masks of Nyarlathotep and Fungi from Yuggoth as well as the lesser regarded Curse of the Chthonians and The Trail of Tsathogghua anthologies. A slim, a forty-eight page book, The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island is actually an anthology, consisting of two scenarios. The first is ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’, the second, ‘The House in the Woods’. Both are short affairs—‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ can be played through in two sessions at most, whilst ‘The House in the Woods’ will last no more than a single session. Each is also heavily inspired by a single H.P. Lovecraft story. In the case of ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ it is ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’, whilst the inspiration for ‘The House in the Woods’ is ‘The Whisperer in Darkness’. For veterans of Lovecraftian investigative horror, the menace at the heart of either scenario should be obvious—Deep Ones in ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ and the Mi-go in ‘The House in the Woods’.

Remember though, The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island was published in 1984. Such inspiration would not have been familiar as it is today when Lovecraft’s influence is near ubiquitous and his fiction is deemed worthy enough to published as part of the Penguin Classics imprint. Thus what could be seen as derivative, even unoriginal, with the benefit of three decades’ worth of hindsight, would have seemed fresh and original at the time of publication. Further, and with four decades’ worth of hindsight, ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ feels derivative of something else, but we will get to that…

As its title suggests, ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ takes place on Monhegan Island, an isolated and insular community just off the coast of Maine. In June, 1924, a young girl is reported missing, but the Maine State Police has been unable to do no more than report her as “missing and presumed drowned”. Nevertheless, the head of the island, Roger Martinson, believes that the girl was murdered and wants her disappearance investigated further and so hires the player characters. They have little time to conduct their investigation on the mainland—and this does feel rushed—before being whisked away to the island where they find that the dissipated lifestyle of both Martinson and his lady companions seems at odds with his interest in determining the girl’s fate. 

The investigation process is relatively slight. By the time the investigators get to Monhegan Island, they should have done the bulk of the investigative paperwork. This leaves the physical process and here the investigators come up against the bulwark of the insular nature of the islanders. Few if any of them will talk and the likelihood is that the physical investigation will end up with the investigators being led on a wild goose chase before being herded to the scenario’s denouement. The truth of the matter is that the islanders are making human sacrifices in return for bountiful harvests from the sea—and guess who the islanders plan to sacrifice next? 

This is not an original idea. In fact it is all but a ‘pulp’ trope, but ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ feels like the plot of the 1973 film, The Wicker Man. Admittedly, this is as fine an inspiration as you could wish, but here it feels leaden and somewhat plodding. The problem is that there is relatively little for the investigators to do and the effect is likely to be frustrating for many. The other issue with ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ is a problem endemic to early Call of Cthulhu scenarios—the need to award the player characters with physical treasure. A hangover from Dungeons & Dragons, a game in which loot is everything, what the investigators receive in ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ is a tumult of tomes. Three classic Call of Cthulhu Mythos tomes can be found in the scenario and that in addition to the other texts to be found.

Again set in 1924, ‘The House in the Woods’ takes place in Maine. Jeffrey Winter, a Professor of American Indian Archaeology has gone missing. Recovering from a nervous breakdown, he has not returned from a weekend away at his doctor’s holiday home and the Maine State Police have pronounced him a missing person. The investigators are hired by one of Professor Winter’s friends to determine what has happened to him. If the degree of investigation required in ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ is slight, then it is absolutely brief in ‘The House in the Woods’. This is no surprise. ‘The House in the Woods’ is intended to provide a beginning encounter with the Mythos for Keeper and players alike, and this it does reasonably well. There is the opportunity for a little investigation, the Keeper to ham it up with an NPC, and then short creepy encounter. 

Where ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ definitely comes to strong and definite denouement, the climax to ‘The House in the Woods’ is underwritten and gives a somewhat fleeting experience. That said, this ‘fleeting’ experience befits the scenario and the foes that the investigators face.

Accompanying The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island is a set of pre-generated investigators. What is interesting about the six is that they are written, as are the scenarios, for Call of Cthulhu, First Edition, and this shows most clearly in the pre-generated investigators. For example, each has ‘POW POINTS’ rather than Magic Points, and the skills are listed not in alphabetical order, but by type—Knowledge Skills, Perception Skills, Manipulation Skills, Stealth Skills, Communication Skills, and Agility Skills. The six point to an age when investigators were slightly more powerful and physically capable, this time a hangover from the Basic Roleplay mechanics of the period from which the Call of Cthulhu rules are derived. Of course, this is before the paring down of investigator skills and capabilities that would come with Call of Cthulhu, Third Edition and subsequent editions. Of course, rounding out the book is an advert for Grenadier Models, Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu miniatures.

Physically, The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island feels well-produced. In particular the artwork has a pleasingly oppressive feel to it and the maps have both character and detail. Advice for the Keeper is light, but what is given is in keeping with that given for scenarios and campaigns of the period. Notes are included should the Keeper want to run other scenarios after running ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ and ‘The House in the Woods’, though those for the latter are slight at best.

At the time, Stephen Kyle, writing in White Dwarf #59 (November, 1984) described The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island as being “more down-to-earth” and that ‘The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island’ “shows that simplicity can work to a story’s advantage, and manages to reproduce that strangely disturbing atmosphere of such Lovecraft tales as The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” Pointing out the relative cheapness of book, Kyle suggested that The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island presented “a very useful package”. Conversely, John Dark, writing in Different Worlds #40 (Jul/Aug 1985) was less kind, stating that, “Sadly, these scenarios are just not very interesting.” and that “To sum up, Monhegan Island has nothing outstandingly bad with it.  But there's nothing outstanding about it at all.” (Thanks to Allan Grohe of Black Blade Publishing for providing access to the relevant issue of Different Worlds).

The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island is neither a forgotten gem nor instantly forgettable. That said, it has none of the arch, sometimes absurd, Pulp propensities of the T.O.M.E. titles of the period. Neither of its scenarios is without its faults, but both do work as introductions to playing the game. Of the two, ‘The House in the Woods’ feels better for its ‘fleeting’ nature—indeed it would make for a suitable prequel to the scenario, ‘The Madman’ from the Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition rule book. Overall, The Horrible Secret of Monhegan Island is a pairing of the serviceable with the familiar, notable more for its publisher than for its content.

Would You Appley Play This?

Recently I got the chance to get Apples to Apples out onto the table. I have had a copy for a while after picking it up for a games party that got cancelled; and there is the nub of the issue. Like most of the people that I play boardgames with, I like to have some complexity to a game and I like to have some theme to a game. So it rare that we decide to bring out a party game and I have so few in number that I can count the party games in my collection. For your information, I own copies of Cineplexity, Gambit-7 (the Anglicised version of Wits & Wagers), Who Would Win? , and now, Apples to Apples. Originally published by Out of the Box in 1999, but now published by Mattel, Inc. – and hey, who would have thought I would be buying a Mattel game at my age? – this game of “hilarious comparisons” has sold millions of copies, been translated into numerous languages and different versions, and proven to be very popular.

Designed for four to ten players, aged twelve and up, Apples to Apples comes in a neat square box that contains a single, double-sided rules sheet, and some eight hundred and forty-six cards. The cards are divided into two coloured types. The first are the six hundred and forty-eight Red Apple Cards and the second, two hundred and sixteen Green Apple Cards. The Red Apple Cards are “noun” cards that represent events, organisations, personal aspects, people, places, times, and things. For example, the “Rock Concert,” “Greenpeace,” “My Street,” “King Arthur,” “Blackpool,” “The 1970s,” and “Leeks.” The Green Apple Cards represent characteristics or descriptive attributes that can be applied to the “noun” or Red Apple Cards, such as “Annoying,” “English,” or “Philosophical.” Each version of Apples to Apples is usually tailored along a theme or a particular culture and language. As can be seen from the list of cards so far, my version of the game is the British Apples to Apples.

Apart from an appropriately coloured apple, there are no illustrations on the cards, but is there some supplementary information. Sometimes this can be silly, such “How many Essex Girls does it take to get an Essex Girl joke…?” on the Essex Girls Red Apple Card, but sometimes this is educational. For example, “From the French caboche, meaning “big head.”” on the Cabbage Red Apple Card. On the Green Apple Card the supplementary information that expands upon the descriptive attribute with three synonyms, such as “frantic, headlong, and reckless” for the “Desperate” Green Apple Card.

The aim of the game is to win a certain number of Green Apple Cards, the number depending upon the number of players – more players lowers the required number. A Green Apple Card is won by getting the current Judge to select the Red Apple Card that you played as being the best match or comparison with the current Green Apple Card.

The game starts with every player receiving a hand of seven Red Apple Cards and one person being chosen to be the Judge. The Judge draws one Green Apple Card and reads it aloud before placing face up on the table where everyone can see it. The other players each choose a Red Apple Card from their hands which they think will best match the descriptive attribute of the Green Apple Card on the table. These cards are placed face down on the table and once everyone has played a card, the Judge picks them up and examines them. He then reads aloud the Red Apple Cards played and decides which one of them is best described by the Green Apple Card he drew. The player of the chosen Red Apple Card wins that round and is awarded the Green Apple Card towards his score. All of the Red Apple Cards are discarded and the next player takes the role of Judge, dealing new Red Apple Cards to bring everyone’s hand back up to seven and then drawing a new Green Apple Card.

So for example, Anthony is the Judge and draws the “Innocent” Green Apple Card. From their hands, Dave, Jeremy, Matt, and Michele play the “Climate Change,” “Elephants,” “Michael Jackson,” and “The Ocean” Red Apple Cards. Anthony chooses “Elephants” as the Red Apple Card that compares best with the “Innocent” Green Apple Card and Michele, who played that card receives the “Innocent” Green Apple Card to add to her score.

The Judge is free to select the Red Apple Card of his choice, and can justify it however he wants. Nor does his choice have to be logical or agree with any of the opinion of the other players though they are free to persuade him as to which Red Apple Card to choose. Anthony chose “Elephants” because he believes them to be innocent, but he could have selected “Michael Jackson” because in his opinion, the popstar’s fans believe him to be innocent. One accepted tactic is called “Playing to the Judge” in which a player puts down the Red Apple Card from hand that he thinks the Judge all but regardless of how relevant the Red Apple Card is. So in the above example, Michele could have played the “Michael Jackson” Red Apple Card because she knows that Anthony is a fan of his music.

Besides the basic play of the game, Apples to Apples includes several other options such as Judging Red Apple Cards that are the opposite to, or least like the Green Apple Card played; having to play a Red Apple Card before the Green Apple Card is played; and even having to play a Red Apple Card that is most like two Green Apple Cards, these being drawn at the beginning of the round as normal. That said, given the number of cards in the box as a whole, getting through those using the standard rules before wanting to move on these variants.

Ultimately, the fun of playing a party game like Apples to Apples comes from the players themselves and their reactions to the card combinations. This also means that because the players have to bring much of themselves to the game, they have to be in the right mood to play Apples to Apples. Whilst it is too light to be a gamer’s game, it can nevertheless be fun and provide a diversion from weightier titles, and even though it is over ten years old, it is a good party game.

What it means for me is that I have another party game in my arsenal for when I need something light and undemanding that non-gamers can and are prepared to play. Of the party games that I own, I prefer Gambit-7 and Who Would Win? over Apples to Apples as there is often more of a challenge to playing either. So Apples to Apples is fun. It might not be the best party game available, but it is a venerable design and if you had to have one party game in collection that everyone could play, Apples to Apples would be a good choice.