Cthulhoid Choices: 4thulhu

As it acknowledges, there are too many games about Cthulhu and the Mythos. So why one more? Especially given that the publisher, Just Crunch Games, has its very own roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror in the form of Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition. So, what is the point of 4thulhu: A 4-sided System for Cosmic Horror? Well, it exists because the author wanted to create a roleplaying game using only four-sided dice. Which begs the question, what exactly does it offer the player and Director of roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror that other, similar roleplaying games do not? That is a difficult question to answer. Since Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu are mainstays, and there is even lighter roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror than 4thulhu, and that is Cthulhu Dark. Think then of 4thulhu as an alternative to Cthulhu Dark when players and Directors want something lighter, but with a little more mechanical nuance. An absolute cynic might be describe 4thulhu as yet another roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror for the collector. More so given its obscurity. That said, 4thulhu is inexpensive. In fact, the four four-sided dice needed to play the roleplaying game are probably going to cost as much, if not more than the price of 4thulhu.

In order to run and play 4thulhu: A 4-sided System for Cosmic Horror, a group will need some four-sided dice—at least four—and copies of the Player Character sheet (though an index card will do just as well). A Player Character in 4thulhu has four attributes. These are Grit, Form, Lore, and Mien, corresponding to physical power, agility, knowledge, and personality and willpower. These are valued at two each, and then one can be adjusted up and another down. Injury and Realisation are derived values. A player can alternatively roll for the attributes. A Player Character has up to twelve skills. These are rated Expert, Adept, Novice, and Unskilled. An Expert skill means that a Player Character will succeed on a roll of two or more; three or more for an Adept skill; four for a Novice skill; and rolls of four on two four-sided dice. It is important to note that the player can select as many as he wants at the start of play, but he can also leave them blank until they are needed, in which case he selects at that point, during play.

Henry Brinded, Antiquarian
Grit1 Form 2 Lore 3 Mien 2
Injury 4
Realisation 4
Skills
Ancient Languages (Expert), History (Adept), Artillery (Novice), Accounting (Adept)

Mechanically, 4thulhu is as simple as outlined above, whilst attribute checks are rolled like unskilled checks. Combat and similar situations are handled as opposed rolls. If one combatant succeeds and rolls higher, it is the winner; a stalemate occurs if combatants roll the same value and succeed; and if both sides fail, they both suffer negative effects. Damage is brutal with a melee weapon or a light firearm inflicting two points of Injury. If a Player Character has his Injury reduced to zero, he is unconscious. The most complex rule here is how facing the Cosmic Truth is handled. Here a Player Character’s Realisation is subtracted from five and that is the target number, the minimum target number being two or more. If the roll is successful, the Player Character can carry, but if not, his Realisation is reduced by one. If it is reduced to zero, the Player Character might blackout or run away or hide, and so on. Recovery of Injury takes weeks and months for Realisation.

The adversaries in 4thulhu are defined in a fashion similar to Player Characters. The Director can adjust the attributes and assign skills as necessary, and the more powerful the adversary the more unbalanced it will be in comparison to a Player Character. 4thulhu gives details for six Mythos races and entities, including the Colour Out of Space, Deep Ones, Elder Things, Fungi from Yuggoth, Nightgaunts, and Ghouls. 4thulhu does not cover Mythos tomes, spells, or the ‘gods’. Here the Director will need to improvise. There are brief notes on converting content from other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror and on improvising horror. The latter actually covers everything you might find in a larger, more detailed roleplaying game, but in the briefest of fashions. More bullet points than paragraphs. To help set up a scenario, 4thulhu includes a set of ‘Unforeseen Circumstances’ tables, which annoyingly require six-sided dice rather than four-sided dice. The advice is good, though light.

The scaling of 4thulhu to use a four-sided die does mean that there is not a lot of mechanical depth or longevity to its play. In comparison with similar games, Player Characters are weaker and there is no scope for experience or growth. So, 4thulhu is likely to be used for one-shots, short scenarios, or mini-campaigns at best. The advice that emphasises improvisation also lends itself towards this conclusion too.

Physically, 4thulhu is slightly roughly presented with extra inserts. It is lightly illustrated. It is decently written.

There are options which are missing from 4thulhu: A 4-sided System for Cosmic Horror—spells, tomes, and gods in particular. It is not a comprehensive roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but it is quick and easy to play, while relying on greater improvisation and creativity upon the part of the Director than another roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror might. Ultimately, 4thulhu: A 4-sided System for Cosmic Horror is a workable, if limited mini-roleplaying game.

—oOo—

Just Crunch Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place from Friday, 29th to Sunday 31st of May.

A Copernican Catastrophe

It is the year 1580 and one of the greatest mathematicians, astronomers, and physicians of the age has been dead these past thirty-seven years. Nicolaus Copernicus is most famous for formulating a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its centre. So, the question is, why has someone sent Doctor John Dee, court astronomer to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, Copernicus’ coffin? And why does it contain a skeleton with a silver dagger plunged into its chest plate with a note attached which reads, “Do you Believe now?” Doctor Dee knows that the skeleton is not that of Copernicus, since he had more teeth than the skeleton, but cannot fathom why someone should send both it and the coffin to him. Nevertheless, he is definitely intrigued by the delivery and strongly suspects that this is a trap. Which is why he sends agents to the village of Frombork in Poland to investigate, since they are, after all, condemned men. Condemned men whose heresy—as minor as it was—is enough for them to have been executed long ago were it not for Sir Francis Walsingham giving them a stay of execution whilst they investigate occult threats to both Queen and kingdom, are all that stand between an even greater heresy and the reordering of the cosmos that would undo all of Copernicus’ theories! This is the situation that faces the Agents in Only A Fool, a scenario for Just Crunch Games’ The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe.

Only A Fool is not your average scenario for The Dee Sanction. To begin with it is the winner of a scenario-writing competition on The Raspy Raven Discord which hosts a lot of online games, and then it is not set in Merry Olde England, but in Poland. This requires that the Player Characters speak Polish and Doctor Dee employs them because they can. This is not usual for the Player Characters in The Dee Sanction, so Only a Fool is better suited to play as a one-shot or convention scenario.

Armed with details of Copernicus’ life and studies, the Player Characters travel to the village outside of the Archcathedral of Frombork and from there investigate and follow the clues that lead them into the cathedral, Copernicus Tower where Nicolaus Copernicus conducted his astronomical research, and beyond the village to where his mistress, Anna Schilling, still lives. The investigation is relatively short and not overly complex, essentially a mini-sandbox with a handful of locations. However, the Player Characters will quickly realise that they are being watched and that despite the rationality of Copernicus’ thesis, there are men and women in the village and the Archcathedral of Frombork who very much still hold to the heliocentrism of the past several thousand years. Their belief is ardent and raises the questions, what else do they believe in and what powers does that belief grant them? In fact, belief and non-belief lies at the heart of the scenario and the Player Characters will be constantly asked if they are believers or non-believers. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Believers will see the acts of heresy that are carried out during the scenario, but will also be suspectable to them as well, whilst Non-Believers will not be affected by them because they cannot see them. Further, some NPCs will only readily talk to Believers and talking to some of those NPCs is vital to the plot.

Ultimately, the scenario will climax at a performance of the malign Dischordant Harmoney at a Grand Alignment Eclipse in which Belief and Non-Belief are the weapons that the enemy and the Player Characters must wield against each other. The Dischordant Harmoney is performed on the organ in the Archcathedral of Frombork, so the climax has an over the top Gothic feel. Given that Only a Fool is best used as a convention or one-shot scenario, it is a pity that a set of pre-generated could not have been included with the scenario.

Physically, Only A Fool is tightly laid out over three pages. It is lightly illustrated and does need an edit. The single map is slightly too small to be fully effective and would have benefited from being on a whole page rather than half a page. Nevertheless, everything is decently organised and easy to use straight from the page.

Only a Fool is pulpy Gothic horror scenario that really benefits from its very different setting to that usually seen in scenarios for The Dee Sanction and from the players and their characters having to explore the consequences of belief and non-belief. It is short, direct, and easy to prepare, so is a solid convention or one-shot scenario.

Blood for the Blood Queen!

It is 1586 and Queen Elizabeth holds Mary, Queen of Scots still prisoner. Powerful, yet on the periphery of Europe, she is anathema to every good Catholic and every Catholic majesty on the continent, and to the Pope in Rome. Philip II of Spain, once also King of England by marriage to Elizabeth’s older half-sister, Queen Mary, sees it as his divine duty to overthrow his sister-in-law as a heretic and install Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne of England. It is a year before Queen Elizabeth will execute Mary, Queen of Scots and two years before King Philip launched the ill-fated Spanish Armada to defeat England’s sea power and invade, making England catholic once again. Meanwhile, he plots and directs court to undermine the English throne at every turn. In 1586, at his bidding, his court astrologer, Abiathar Crescas, will launch a plot that will see Queen Elizabeth suborned and replaced by the end of the year! Only the condemned men and women in the employ of Doctor John Dee, heretics themselves who would have been executed long ago were it not for Sir Francis Walsingham giving them a stay of execution whilst they investigate occult threats to both Queen and kingdom, are all that stand between Spain and a dastardly demonic plot to overthrow her majesty! This is the situation that faces the Agents in Abaddon’s Puppet, a scenario for Just Crunch Games’ The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe.

Abaddon’s Puppet takes place in late 1586. It begins with Doctor John Dee instructing the Agents to continue investigating Christopher Marlowe after the events outlined in the scenario, ‘Ex Libris’ (which can be found in The Dee Sanction Adventures: A True & Faithful Transcription of Matters Concerning Lost Books, Strange Sorceries, Befouled Poppets, Accusations of Witchcraft, and Assorted HELLSCAPES) and word reaching the Agents of the bodies of children being found in the Thames, each one strangely withered, as if aged. This gives the Agents two lines of inquiry, one more difficult than the other. Investigating Christopher Marlowe is hampered by the fact that he has disappeared, but he was last seen coaching a young actor, Victor Smith, who has also disappeared. The Agents need to be circumspect here, since the clues point to Victor Smith working at the estate of Lord Wessex at nearby Egham. The other line of inquiry is more direct, taking the Agents along the banks of the Thames and surrounding streets on the trail of the bodies leading to an orphanage and a foundered ship just upriver. Eventually, this will lead to signs of very bloody doings in a nearby cellar. If the Agents are quick, they may well discover the perpetrators of bloody doings in situ and bring the scenario to much earlier end. However, it is more likely that they will be long gone by the Agents get there and it will be necessary to follow the other line of inquiry to the conclusion of the scenario. This takes place at Kenilworth Castle, owned by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, where Abiathar Crescas and other Catholic conspirators work to bring their demonic plan to fruition and so engineer her dethronement and replacement by Mary, Queen of Scots.

Abaddon’s Puppet is a well organised affair. Each plot strand—the two investigations into Christopher Marlowe and the bodies in the water, followed by the journey to and the confrontation at Castle Kenilworth—is presented on a single page. This includes an overview and lists of clues, characters, and locations, the lists presenting the information as a series of bullet points. However, there is no direct connective tissue between the lists and it is not directly clear as to what clue each NPC knows and why. For the experienced Game Master this is not a problem as she can make the narrative connections and so bring the interactions between the NPCs and the Agents to life. For the less experienced Game Master this will be more of a hurdle and she may well want to assign each clue to a particular NPC or group of NPCs as part of her preparation. The Game Master might also want to create a few minor NPCs too should the players and their Agents want to talk to the families of the ‘adopted’ children. Otherwise, the organisation makes the scenario very easy to run from the page.

Physically, Abaddon’s Puppet is short, but decently organised and illustrated. Everything is clearly laid out and easy to find, and although lightly illustrated, it is a nice-looking scenario.

Taking some inspiration from the film Shakespeare in Love, Abaddon’s Puppet presents a dark, twisted plot against Queen Elizabeth that combines some pleasing investigation, a horrifying and challenging confrontation against the occult, and outright, bloody treason! In truth, the Agents are going to be lucky to survive the confrontation against Abaddon at the end of the scenario, but if they do, they will have proved their worth and their loyalty to the crown. Of course, having already been condemned to death and under stay of execution, their reward is never going to be more than a mere thanks and another assignment. Such is the power of The Dee Sanction.

One Bad Lock-In

If they are very lucky, for the agents of Doctor John Dee, it will be an evening like any other. Unluckily—rather luckily, for were they not such agents serving the crown, Walsingham would have not spared them their sentence for heresy—it is not going to be an evening like any other. Their employer, Mister Garland, sends the agents on what should be a simple collection task at The Admiral’s Compass, an inn in the once great port of Winchelsea, its once busy harbour silted up and its status as one of the Cinque Ports long since lost. Take possession of a valuable package and safely transport it Dee at Mortlake, they are told. Unfortunately, the contents of the package are far more dangerous than the Agents might suppose and certainly far more dangerous than the unfortunately greedy and larcenous stable boy at the inn could ever imagine. However, a furtive delivery and collection and a foolish theft are not the only events that are going to take place and be resolved at The Admiral’s Compass that night. This is the situation as laid out to the Agents in The Admiral’s Compass, a scenario for Just Crunch Games’ The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe.

TheAdmiral’s Compass is a short, single session scenario, published under the ‘Sanction Community Content Creation Licence’, that is location-based and could easily be run as a convention scenario, but just as simply slipped into an ongoing campaign. Its events all take place within the confines of the inn over the course of a single evening. Besides the collection of the package, the other threads—appropriately—involve a prisoner exchange with a Spanish envoy and the sad story of a young sailor whom came home scarred by his experiences serving aboard the Counter Armada launched by Sir Francis Drake in April, 1589, following the defeat of the Spanish Armada the previous year. Initially, the three strands are separate, but by mid-evening, they will crash into each other and become increasingly intertwined and involve the Agents more and more. This all takes place against the backdrop of a storm that keeps the inn isolated and its staff and patrons reluctant to step outside, plus the growing realisation that something is stalking them both. Mixed into this are at least a couple of creepy scenes, more so if either player or Agent is an arachnophobe!

Physically, The Admiral’s Compass is short, but decently organised and illustrated. Everything is clearly laid out and easy to find and there is both a floorplan and a description of the Inn. Overall, a nice-looking scenario.

The Admiral’s Compass can be run as a standard or a convention scenario or one-shot. As either of the later, the Game Master will need to prepare some ready-to-play Agents, complete with agendas of their own and agendas tied to the various members of staff and patrons at the inn. Otherwise, The Admiral’s Compass is a neat little horror scenario which takes place on a dark and stormy night.

“Let dead bodies lie”

It never pays to unearth the dead. Of late, rumours of ghosts and strange sightings have beset the London parish of Saint Poulkar, culminating in the recent attack by oddly acting rats upon a local child. These sightings have been centred near a converted Catholic estate that belongs to the Church, an estate that is recorded as having been the site of a mass burial site from the city’s last great Bubonic Plague outbreak in 1563. In addition, in response to complaints about the stench of the plague pit, ecclesiastical authorities have given permission for it to be excavated and cleared of the bones. Are the two connected? Certainly, the former is reason enough for Sir Francis Walsingham to want his agents to investigate and determine if there was something bad buried in the garden and if it represents a threat to the Crown and the natural order. And then deal with it. This is the situation as laid out to the Agents in Buried Dreams, a scenario for Just Crunch Games’ The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe.

Buried Dreams is a short, single session scenario, published under the ‘Sanction Community Content Creation Licence’, that is location-based and could easily be run as a convention scenario. It has a nice mix of elements. A frail old priest descending into senility after living too long near the plague pit in house belonging to the church, a ghostly woman walking at night, a team of diggers who have down tools at the conditions and the frightening apparitions, and a bullied engineer are the least of it. With some investigation the Player Characters can discover what the Catholic Church used the house for during the reign of Queen Mary I and before, what the Anglican Church did afterwards in response, and find signs of it to if they are sharp-eyed. It will be quickly obvious that all signs point to the pit and whatever it is that the church interred there, but finding someone else other than the striking labourers to dig further may prove to be a challenge and when they have discovered what was buried, what to do with it may prove to be an even bigger challenge. Ultimately, the problem shifts from one of the dig being the potential cause of the supernatural to whether it might actually be the solution in the face of a dangerous outbreak of occult activity. If the Player Characters do not act, the situation on the former estate will descend into one of murder, growing fear, and ultimately mass possession.

Physically, Buried Dreams is plainly presented. There only the one piece of artwork, used to illustrate the villain (so ideally, the Game Master should get more illustrations for the other NPCs lest it appear that the villain is being singled out) and a map of Elizabethan London. The later is nice, but too small to be of much use. A map of the estate would have been useful.

Buried Dreams is a short sharp scenario of horror resulting from misunderstanding and fear. It is easy to prepare and its London location makes it easy for the Game Master to add it to her campaign.

The Other OSR: Ship of Fools

The year is 1395. The Hundred Years War has long been over, but neither Europe, or indeed, Christendom is stable. The Crusades continue in the Levant to the great cost of Europe’s great kingdoms. Outbreaks of the Black Death are all too frequent. The peasantry and the labouring classes bristle against the continued abuse of privilege and ill-treatment they suffer at the hands of both government and nobility, resulting in civil unrest and uprisings. Trade and production are held in the vice-like grip of mercantile and craft guilds, limiting scope for growth, enrichment, and improvement. And the Papacy is itself riven in two. In the past, unrest in the Holy See and Rome forced the Pope to flee to the French city of Avignon. Now there are two members of the church claiming to be the Bishop of Rome and thus head of the church. Pope Boniface IX sits in Rome, whilst Benedict XIII sits in Avignon. Which of the incumbents has the right to call himself the Holy Father? Which of the incumbents is ready to accept the other as the rightful Pope? Which of the incumbents is willing to resign, so that a new Pope can be elected and so reunite the church? It does not matter, for now Pope Benedict XIII fears the influence of the other Pope and outside influences, undermining his authority and that of the faithful. In the city of Avignon, made grand by his beneficence and that of his predecessors, all legitimate Popes, the paranoia of Pope Benedict XIII runs deep. The security and integrity of the Papal Court must be maintained in the face of continuing subversion, greedy priests, proud kings, angry mercenaries, lazy clerks, not said the neuroticism of the Pope, and so Papal Investigators must be deployed.

This is the set-up for Ship of Fools, a ‘Genre Set-Up’ for Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks. Published by Just Crunch Games, this is setting in which the Player Characters are members of the Office of Papal Investigation charged with finding peaceful—or at least the least disruptive—solutions to the issues that the Avignon papacy faces, ensuring the safety of the Pope, and enforcing the pronouncements and decrees made by Pope Benedict XIII. The setting is based upon historical research, its bibliography referencing The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and Ars Magica by Jonathan Tweet, let alone books on the Avignon Papacy and the Medieval world. In tone it suggests the setting is Father Ted meets Kafka’s The Trial, but add to that the roleplaying game Paranoia and the animated Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. The degree of research shows succinctly in the first few pages, which in turn describe the world of Avignon, the papal palace, the ladder of stations—from Pope all the way down to the Monk and the layman—in the Catholic Church, and its world in turmoil.

A Papal Investigator in Ship of Fools has three Resources, here called Influence, Eminence, and Passion, the equivalent of Charisma, Reputation, and Willpower (or faith). These are not necessarily physical abilities, although there is nothing to stop a Papal Investigator from applying them to physical situation, but rather ways in which a Papal Investigator can apply his standing and belief in his standing in the church—that belief being his own and that of the NPCs around him. He also has three Abilities, one for each of his three Lifepaths. One Lifepath is his Curia Role, what was his original assignment within the Avignon court before being appointed to the Office of Papal Investigations; one is from his Secret Order which gives him secret purpose; and one from his Papal Duties, the training that marks him as a Papal Investigator. There are eight orders of the Curia, which together run the church. For example, the Camera Apostolica, whose lawyers extract taxes, whilst their most devout examine and catalogue relics for signs of their divinity; the Hospitallers protect the church, but their lack of faith is  doubted by the Inquisition; and the Transitus maintains the Papacy’s means and lines of communication across Europe, leading to rivalry with the Supportare, which maintains the infrastructure of the Papacy and Avignon. The other Curia include the Chancery, Dominican Order, Roman Inquisition, Apostolic Penitentiary, and the Supportare. The Secret Orders consist of the Adminsitratum, Anarcho-Syndicalists, Black Friars, Clementines, Committee, Free Spirits, Gardeners, Knights of the Holy Ghost, Metéora, Mumblers, and Occamites, whilst the Papal Duties include Barber Surgeon, Cellarer, Lector, Sacrist, Almoner, Financial Steward, and Liturgist.

In addition to two devices and pieces of equipage, the Papal Investigator has Corruption. This is a measure of his lack of Piety. It begins play at one and can go as high as ten. When his player fails a Challenge, that is, rolling one or two on a Challenge, the Papal Investigator suffers doubts and his piety is tested, requiring a roll higher than his current Corruption score. Calling upon a relic for its divine power or making a confession—as every Papal Investigator must do at the end of a Calling—also requires a similar test. If failed, the Papal Investigator gives into a sin or Folly, such as pride, sloth, deceit, or petulance. One point of Corruption and its associated Folly can be expunged between adventures, but a Papal Investigator can also beg an indulgence of another Papal Investigator (though if this fails, both suffer more Corruption) or pay a penance to remove more.

Although the Camera Apostolica controls the vast archive of holy relics held by the papacy and access to them, each Papal Investigator has his own that he can pray on and draw inspiration from. He may even find more in play, though not all of them may be ‘holy’. A Papal Investigator’s Relic is supplied by his Secret Order. Each Relic grants a particular power, but the Game Moderator is encouraged to create and fully develop Relics to make them interesting and unique. Several sample Relics, all nicely detailed, are provided. (The Game Moderator might want to look at Burgs & Bailiffs: Trinity – The Poor Pilgrim’s Almanack for more information on Relics.)

Catalina the Benignant

Origins: Toledo

Influence D8 Eminence D4 Passion D6

Curia Role: Chancery

Secret Order: Clementines

Papal Duties: Barber Surgeon

Abilities: Ciphers, Dance, Craft (Tailor)

Pressure Track: 0

Equipment: Vial, Medicinal Cordial, Scribe’s Kit

Hits: 3

Corruption: 1

Relic: Candle of St. Thomas (Extinguish: Fervour)

An adventure or assignment in Ship of Fools is known as a ‘Calling’. There is a little discussion on what a ‘Calling’ is, as well as an example as a suggested opening. At the start of a Calling, one Papal Investigator is appointed the leader, or Prior. He has two Fortune which can be sued on anyone’s roll, but at the end of the Calling, his player assesses the other Papal Investigators and rates them. The Game Moderator then tests their Corruption on this basis. This adds a tense and slightly adversarial element to play, the feeling that the Papal Investigators are constantly being monitored. To balance this, the Papal Investigators can take turns being the Prior.

Rounding out Ship of Fools is a set of short, sample Calling hooks and five sample pre-generated Papal Investigators, some enemies, and a complete Calling. This is ‘The Relic, The Ruse, and The Ridiculous’ in which the Papal Investigators are tasked with locating a missing relic. It is an entertaining affair which can be played through in a single session, perhaps two. The final pages discuss what might happen in the future of the twin Papacy.

Physically, Ship of Fools is well presented, but lightly illustrated with nicely period artwork. The supplement is a pleasing read.

Ship of Fools is a thoroughly engaging and enticing setting. The idea of playing papal investigators in a world of apostolic bureaucracy, religious dogma, and papal perturbation is a delight. This setting definitely deserves more content and even a campaign, but in the meantime, Ship of Fools is a very good introduction to a world of papal paranoia and sacred shambles.

The Other OSR: Lost in the Fold

All you know is Here. There is no need to know of anywhere that is not Here. Where is Here? You know nobody who knows. It is your Home. It is your community. It gives you a function. It gives you opportunities for recreation. It gives you the chance to contribute to the Community. Everything you need and everything anyone needs, flows through The Chain. You know it works. Its pipes run everywhere and wheeze and pop and whistle and clang, but always deliver what you need when you need it. When the Community needs it. Starting every day with a morning clothing bullet to make sure everyone is dressed in fresh apparel. All of which is overseen by The Authority, the municipal administration which ensures that The Chain continues to operate, to ensure everyone is assigned to the right sleeping quarters, given the correct amount of recreation time, they contribute to the Community, and they keep a record that they do. Yet… There is the Threshold. It might be the edge or the end of Here, but nobody knows. Or at least nobody is saying. And definitely, nobody who has gone beyond the Threshold, whether deliberately or be accident, has returned to tell anyone what the Threshold is or what lies on the other side.

This is what anyone knows—including the Player Characters—of the Here, a habitat occupied by humanity, surviving on limited resources, and living on borrowed and definitely bureaucratic time. What the habitat of the Here is, is unknown. It could be a bunker, buried underground after a nuclear apocalypse, a space station orbiting Jupiter, a long-term social experiment, or at the end of the universe. Wherever and whatever it is, the scarcity of resources means that if anything went wrong, the Here would no longer be viable. It could collapse. It could be shut down. Either way, it would be ‘Lost in the Fold’, in a bureaucratic reshuffle as its last resources are reassigned.

This is the set-up for the Lost in the Fold. Published by Just Crunch Games, this is a ‘Genre Set-Up’ for Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks, which describes itself as a set of “Universal Rules for Challenge-driven Games”. It is a separate ‘Genre Set-Up’ to the two given in the core rulebook—as expanded in .GIF and For A Rainy Day—one inspired by the Post Apocalyptic dystopian Science Fiction of The Silo and Brazil, Yokohama Station and The Trial. It is a roleplaying setting of Science Fiction horror, for there is constant threat of the Habitat in which the Player Characters make their Home or themselves being ‘Lost in the Fold’ or the Player Characters being exposed to the Threshold or perhaps what might be lurking within the Threshold. Lost in the Fold includes some discussion as to that the Habitat might be, but does not decide on any one. What it does do though, is provide the means for the Player Characters to explore the Here and undertake assignments for The Authority as there are issues with The Chain and the Threshold.

A Player Character in Lost in the Fold has three Resources, here called Grit, Rote, and Wile, the equivalent of Physical, Mental, and Willpower, but here also representing the ability of a Player Character to persuade others that he is capable or knowledgeable, rather than necessarily actually being so. He also has a past, represented by a Lifepath. In Sanction, this is a Past, a Diversion, and an Influence. In Lost in the Fold, it is Communal Purpose, representing a Player Character’s place and responsibilities, a Troubling Keepsake which is his unhealthy interest secreted away instead of being returned to The Chain for recycling, and a Downtime Distraction, which is what the Player Character does to reduce stress and contribute towards the sense of community. He also has two items of gear, some base Hits, and a Pressure Track.

Renton
Physical D4 Mental D8 Willpower D6
Communal Purpose: Civil Assistant
Troubling Keepsake: Fencing
Downtime Distraction: Mediating
Abilities: Accounting, Commence, Negotiation
Pressure Track: 0
Equipment: Glow Tube, Stanly Knife
Hits: 3

One key aspect of a Player Character is the degree which he is under Pressure. It is not danger as such, but how a Player Character feels when under the scrutiny of the company he keeps and the situation that he finds himself in. It begins at zero, but when first affected, is set to a twelve-sided die. It increases whenever a non-Pressure check results in Falter or directly due to the nature of a situation, and each time it does, the die size decreases, from a twelve-sided die to a ten-sided, from a ten-sided to an eight-sided, and so on. This step down in pressure die size occurs automatically in these situations rather than a player rolling for it as if Pressure were being treated as a Resource. When something occurs that is so traumatic, such as seeing an unnatural death or an inexplicable situation, a Player Character’s Pressure is Triggered. This requires a Pressure check and when a Player Character rolls a one or two on this roll, a Falter, he will Fold. This does not mean that he disappears, but rather that he shifts in terms of his personality. For example, he may suddenly gain a sense of being Persecuted, be Belligerent, or Rash. These are only temporary, but the lower the Pressure Die, the more often he is affected. Through rest and recreation, a Player Character can improve or increase his Pressure Die.

In terms of running Lost in the Fold, the Game Moderator can use the Mission Triggers table to create assignments, such as ‘Understand/Collect’, ‘Restricted/Uncontrolled’, and ‘Damage/Safety’. In leaving the Habitat she is advised to listen to her players and take cues from their conjecture as to its nature. She is also given advice, including safety advice, on how to create Nightmares, the things that might in the Threshold or even invade the pipes of The Chain. Four sample Nightmares are included for play beyond the scenario given in the book. This is ‘Chain Reaction’. It opens with a problem. The expected and usual Chain Drop and daily arrival of the Clothing Bullet did not take place today or the day before. Dressed in what they can scavenge or have previously hidden away despite it not being socially acceptable, the Player Characters are assigned to investigate. This sends the Player Characters into an industrial space, a space in between, which could be the Threshold, the space between the walls, or even another Habitat, another Here. The scenario does not make this clear, and intentionally so. It is an exploration scenario, with the Player Characters interacting with each other and with the space they discover rather anyone else.

‘Chain Reaction’ is also self-contained in that it only shows the Player Characters on an assignment which takes them out of the Habitat, or at least, their Here. Consequently, there is insufficient contrast between this and what their life is like in the Here. So no interaction with The Authority or with the Community. The scenario is unbalanced and the Game Moderator might want to address this before she runs it.

Physically, Lost in the Fold is short and simple. The layout is clean and tidy, everything is easy to grasp, and it is very lightly illustrated.

Lost in the Fold has the feeling of Paranoia, but without its budget or all of its satire, and with the sensibility of sixties and seventies Science Fiction shot on a budget in industrial zones. It also has the feeling of promise and of having interesting ideas, but which it also does not have the budget to fully realise them. Although a short book, there are some interesting ideas in Lost in the Fold, but the low page count and a scenario that emphasises what lies beyond the experience of the Player Characters, means that those ideas remain unexplored. Lost in the Fold is an interesting ‘Genre Set-Up’ with some intriguing ideas, but no more than that, leaving the Game Moderator wishing that it had gone further in exploring its set-up.

The Other OSR: For A Rainy Day

Stefan Meunch is dead. Died three days ago, between weekly visits. Part of the local catalogue round of check-ins for useless and washed-up old spies with nowhere to go and no future beyond a meagre pension, the bottle, and having lived out their usefulness, such as it was, getting by without bringing themselves to anyone’s attention. Only this time he has. The Factory went in and cleaned up as normal, confirmed the death was a heart attack, and was all ready to close the file when an analyst discovered that Stefan Meunch, a retired ex-spy, eighty-five years old, living on a not an entirely unreasonable state pension in a flat over an empty shop in a town in the West Midlands, had quarter of a millions pounds squirrelled away in off-shore accounts. How the hell did he get away with it, where did he get the money from, and who was paying him? More importantly, how did the fuck-ups whose job it was to do the weekly run of the catalogue of hand-me-downs like Stefan Meunch miss the fact that he managed to save quarter of a million pounds?

This is the set-up for the scenario, For A Rainy Day. Published by Just Crunch Games, this is a scenario for Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks, which describes itself as a set of “Universal Rules for Challenge-driven Games”. Specifically, For A Rainy Day is a scenario for the second Genre Set-Up in Sanction. This is ‘Agency: Outlet Work’, an espionage setting inspired by the grim, grimy, and pathetic espionage of the Slow Horses series by Mick Herron with dash of John Le Carré. The Player Characters are ex-agents, failures and fuck-ups, washed out of active service, but not out of the service. Reassigned to small towns and cities like Wolverhampton or Grimsby, the Agents do data processing, combing through reports and archives, and so on, before sorting it and sending it back to head office, with no explanations as to why or what the information is for. It is make-work, a window job, and that is all that the Agent will have until he retires. Yet the Agent hopes, and worse, he cannot help but want to apply his tradecraft. Part of the work involves the catalogue run. Just one more part of their tedious day in their tedious week in their tedious no-career between now and retirement. Probably a bit like Stefan Meunch, but without the quarter of a million. It’s their fuck-up and they have to find out what Stefan Meunch did to make them look like even more of a bunch of fuck ups, and how he got away with it.

‘Agency: Outlet Work’ is one of the best things in the Sanction rulebook—more so if you are a fan of the Slow Horses series—and For A Rainy Day is an introductory scenario for it. Just as ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ is inspired by the Slow Horses series, it should be noted that For A Rainy Day is inspired by a pair novellas that run parallel to the main novels in the series—The Drop and The List. Although a player may be familiar with the series and with both novellas, For A Rainy Day is only inspired by their set-ups, rather than the whole of their plots. In fact, For A Rainy Day is not a scenario in the traditional roleplaying sense, an adventure with a plot that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Rather, it has a beginning—a very good beginning with the Player Characters being given a bollocking for their failure and their players a chance to introduce their characters and their very ordinary lives, and a middle, where all of the investigation takes places, with its grubby scrutiny and possible future for the Player Characters. The end is very much down to the players and what their characters think is going on. For A Rainy Day does tell you what is going on, but the players and their characters may get other ideas… Which is fine, since they are fuck-ups…

For A Rainy Day is heavy on investigation and tradecraft, though there are opportunities for violence too—though only for the Game Master, who is accorded good advice on running the scenario. This includes running it as an episode of a television series, using the provided table of prompts when appropriate, such as when a scene drags or is going nowhere, and reacting to the Player Characters and their actions as it is primarily a player-driven scenario. In addition, five pre-generated Agents, one for each of the standard Lifepath archetypes in ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ are provided for quick set-up and use with the scenario.

Physically, For A Rainy Day is short and simple. The layout is clean and tidy, everything is easy to grasp, and the artwork has a suitably drab, drizzled upon kind of feel.

For A Rainy Day can be used in conjunction with the espionage-themed roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice, but of course, Sanction suits the desperate, down-at-heel grottiness of both ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ and For A Rainy Day. The good news is that For A Rainy Day is the first in a series and it will get sequels, which is probably the most that the Player Character fuck-ups deserve. In the meantime, For A Rainy Day is a delightfully seedy introduction to the wretched world of ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ and its no-hopers.

The Other OSR: .GIF

The Shattered Dominion stands broken by war and the passing of the Last Gods. Only the Warriors of the Grand Guild are now touched by the dwindling spark of their fleeing divinity, imbuing a rage that sees them smash and savage their way through the underground complexes of ancient races or the up towers of overly ambitious wizards, wiping out all before them and looting great relics, but always missing much and leaving a rather big mess in their wake. Thus, they are always followed by members of the Lesser Orders. Chaplains, cut off from their gods and in search of new purpose. Rogues, avoiding a life of crime that might be deadlier than disarming traps and uncovering secrets in a dungeon. Scholars, bereft of magic also, whose sage-like knowledge and ability to keep records might be useful. Their job, perhaps with the addition of the hired help, is to follow the Warrior into the dungeon and there clean up in his wake, map everywhere, record every detail, pick up on anything that the Warrior might have missed, and report back. Their duty is not to fight, especially since the Warrior should technically have dealt with everything, and more importantly, sending a fighting man to clean up after a great Warrior would be exceptionally rude. That though does not mean that they will not have to fight, since the Warrior likes to be direct and straightforward—quite literally in some cases—when dealing with a dungeon.

This is the set-up for With Guile, Incantation and Faith, a ‘Genre Set-Up’ for Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks. Published by Just Crunch Games, this is in fact, an expansion to a Genre Set-Up, also called ‘With Guile, Incantation and Faith’, one of the two given in Sanction. Of the two, it was most familiar and consequently, not quite as interesting, whereas the other was far more intriguing. That said, With Guile, Incantation and Faith—or .GIF as it is annoyingly abbreviated—does do something interesting with Dungeons & Dragons-style play. This is to make any dungeon replayable again. Not by simply restarting afresh, but by starting after a party of Player Characters—or in this case, a mighty Warrior—has worked their way through the dungeon, leaving a trail of broken bodies, traps, puzzles, and treasures behind him as well as a myriad number of rooms and locations unattended. It can be a dungeon that the players might even have played through previously or it can be one that the Game Master creates or adapts herself. Whatever the source of the dungeon, when the members of the Lesser Orders work their way through it, it is in the aftermath.

The expansion in With Guile, Incantation and Faith sees the setting developed further—if only a relatively little—and more details given to the Lesser Orders. That is, the Rogue, the Scholar, the Chaplain, and the Hireling. To this are added extra Abilities, the means of the Lesser Orders members’ survival. These include Boating, Disguise, Excavation, Anatomy, Brewing, Passage & Pathway (the dungeoneering equivalent of traffic analysis), Astrology, Gambling, Signs, and more. These are intended not necessarily as options available during character generation, but rather Abilities that can selected once a Player Character has some experience working as member of the Lesser Orders. Two suggestions—Dungeon Designer and Fate the Stars Foretold—are mentioned, but left undeveloped. The two new Specialities are more obvious and easier to use. The Druid worships the Force of Nature, which might be the only Old God that remains, and has access to Animal Lore, Animal Whispering, and Trapping, whilst the Ranger is a guide and trapper who has access to Hunting, Orienteering, and Passage & Pathway.

Cantrips are treated in a very basic fashion in Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks as just simple, single words that are left for the players and the Game Master to develop. In the world of Shattered Dominion, cantrips are remnants of spells that when have disappointing limited effects. With Guile, Incantation and Faith, each of the single words in the core rules are developed to set the boundaries of what each can do. The descriptions are not written in stone, a player allowed to develop his own interpretation or use of the cantrip, though what is written in stone is that any suggested use of a cantrip which feels or sounds like a fully fledged spell should not be allowed.

Although the set-up and running of With Guile, Incantation and Faith and what the Player Characters do is predicated on the actions of the Warrior, the Warrior remains a nebulous, offscreen presence, but one that is nevertheless constantly felt by the Player Characters. In mechanical terms he becomes a timing mechanism marked by alternating periods of progress and sleep, the latter also marked by a sudden silence after all of the crashing, banging, and wails cut off mid-scream. Then with a yawn and stretch, the Warrior is off again, either to leave the dungeon all together—good for a single session or a convention game—or ready to continue smashing his way through the dungeon.

Random tables are given to track the Warrior’s way through a dungeon with the Player Characters following on behind, and these can be used in a couple of ways, depending on the degree of preparation that the Game Master wants to do. The tables can be used to direct the movement of the Warrior with relatively little regard for the consequences upon the wider environment in a low preparation game, whereas in a high preparation game, the Game Master can use them in combination with asking what effect the Warrior has on the wider dungeon. This will include the obvious scattering of corpses, but to that can be added rescuers, reinforcements, looters, wanderers, vermin, and more. The Warrior’s progress can also cause instability in a dungeon, either break traps or ignore them, likely ignore puzzles, and so on. A handful of monsters are be added, but together with those given in Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks still does not feel enough. Perhaps there is scope for a bestiary of broken and unbroken dungeon monsters, both scarred and unscarred, for With Guile, Incantation and Faith?

With Guile, Incantation and Faith ends with a ‘Sample Dungeon’. It feels more like a manor house than a dungeon, one which the Warrior has run straight through rather entering rooms to the left or right. However, the path can be altered with a few rolls on the random tables to provide some deviation and add more chaos and destruction. Overall, it is short, but detailed and should provide single session’s worth of clear up and accounting in the Warrior’s wake.

Physically, With Guile, Incantation and Faith is a slim, little book, cleanly laid out and easy to read. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is good. The cartography is plain.

With Guile, Incantation and Faith is a clever, even witty twist upon classic Dungeons & Dragons-style play, and this supplement nicely expands upon the information first given in Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks. However, it does feel as if there could be more—more monsters, more background, and more adventure sites—but nevertheless, With Guile, Incantation and Faith is a decent further exploration of a world of lost gods, missing magics, and damaged dungeons.

The Other OSR: Sanction

Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks describes itself as a set of “Universal Rules for Challenge-driven Games.” If that sounds pretentious, then what it really is a roleplaying game with a set of mechanics that are designed for simplicity and flexibility in play, the intention being that they do not intrude unnecessarily and that rolls are only made when there is a chance of a Player Character failing and suffering consequences. That is the ‘Challenges’ aspect of the subtitle. The ‘Hacks’ are adventures and Genre Set-Ups that influence the way in which Sanction is played, but not the how. Published by Just Crunch Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Sanction is derived from three roleplaying games. The first is The Black Hack, an Old School Renaissance roleplaying designed for Dungeons & Dragons-style play, whilst the second is Cthulhu Hack, the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror. Both would lead to the third, The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’, which like Cthulhu Hack, is published by Just Crunch Games. Sanction includes the full rules and two Genre Set-Ups, one of which is very, very good.

Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks begins with an explanation of its mechanics. A Player Character has three Resources rather than attributes or traits. The default are Physical, Mental, and Willpower, but will vary according to the Genre Set-Up. Each Resource is represented by a die type, ranging from ‘D4’ to ‘D12’, but ‘D4’, ‘D6’, and ‘D8’ being the most typical. If a Player Character is faced with a Challenge where the outcome is unknown, his player rolls the appropriate Resource. The Game Moderator decides the terms and goal of the Challenge, what happens if the Player Character succeeds and the Consequences if he fails, and if the Resource can have a ‘Step Up’ or ‘Step Down’, and thus be changed to a higher or lower die size depending upon the circumstances. The player rolls the die and if he rolls three or more, his character succeeds. However, if he rolls one or two, the Challenge Falters and the character suffers the stated Consequences. (Throughout the rules, options are given for using cards from an ordinary deck of playing cards instead of dice.)

A Player Character can also have an Ability which applies to a Challenge. This Ability can be a skill, a knowledge, or a power, depending upon the Genre Set-Up. The Game Moderator can decide that the Ability simply lets the Player Character undertake the task without the need to roll or that it provides him with an edge in the situation which will be represented by a ‘Step Up’. Alternatively, an Ability lets the Player Character undertake the task because it is so specialised. For example, the ‘Concealment’ Ability might simply let the Player Character hide in the undergrowth surrounding a castle or give him a ‘Step Up’ if there are guards on patrol. Whereas, a Player Character with the ‘Cantrips’ can cast minor magical spells that he would otherwise be unable to.

If a ‘Step Down’ decreases the die size to below a ‘D4’, the Game Moderator may still allow the Player Character to act. This is known as a ‘Call to Fail’ and the Player Character will suffer severe Consequences. In general, this option is for the Player Character who wants to cause a distraction.

The most obvious type of Consequence is the Hit. This might be due to a fall, poison, or being hit in combat, but Sanction is not a roleplaying game that emphasises combat. Morse so given that a Player Character only has three Hits before being severely injured or dead. Instead, Consequences can take the form of delays, susceptibilities, breakages, or losses. Their aim is to present interesting narrative outcomes and to test the Player Characters in ways other than being slashed with a sword.

Character creation involves first assigning dice steps to the three Resources. The base for each is a ‘D4’, and once the dice steps have been applied, all three will be at ‘D6’ or one at ‘D4’, one at ‘D6’, and one at ‘D8’. The next step is to take the Player Character through a Lifepath. This consists of three steps. In the default setting, this is a Past, a Diversion, and an Influence. The Past is typically an occupation, the Diversion is why the Player Character is in his current predicament, and Influence is an aspiration. Each of these provides an Ability. The Player Character also receives some equipment. Many items have a Supply Die which, like a Resource, ranges in value from ‘D4’ to ‘D12’. When a Player Character uses any items with a Supply Die, the die is rolled. If a one is rolled, the Supply Die is stepped down to the next die size until this happens on a ‘D4’ and the items are exhausted. A Player Character’s Past, Diversion, and Influence can either be rolled for or the player selects them.

Geoffren is a failed petty wizard. His bursary ran out and he turned to petty theft in order to fund his further studies. It turned out that he was as bad at that as he was at handling his money. His tutors bailed him out in order to prevent any embarrassment to the academy. Now he owes them. He has joined one of the Lesser Orders of the Grand Guild, a minor adventurer assigned to clean-up teams working through dungeons already battled through by mighty Warriors. He notes down everything that his team discovers and recovers and reports back to his true masters in between assignments.

Geoffren
Physical D4 Mental D8 Willpower D6
Past: Scholar
Diversion: Petty Crime
Influence: Sage
Abilities: Blather, Burglary, Folklore
Equipment: Journal
Hits: 3

Sanction is a player-facing roleplaying game. This means that the player always rolls whilst the Game Moderator never does. Nowhere does this show more than in combat or facing Threats. Here the player rolls for his character to attack a Threat and also rolls to avoid being attacked by a Threat. When facing Threats in Sanction, it extends to the order of play as well. Thus, whilst the Game Moderator states the goals for the Threats first and the players states their second, the players resolve their characters’ actions first and then the Game Moderator does for the Threats. Combat is fought out in Moments, each lasting a few seconds, during which time a Player Character can typically attack or act once and react once. A Player Character will typically inflict one Hit with a successful attack, whereas an NPC has its own damage table. The results are determined randomly and can be to move to a more advantageous position, inflict bruises or leave him bloody, or do one Hit. With doing a Hit being only one of the four options, this again emphasises the narrative Consequences of the rules rather than simply doing mechanical damage. This is the most basic range of damage, meant to represent an ordinary person. Sanction includes a range of Threats, each with its own range of damaging Consequences. For example, the Damage options for the Giant Spider consist of ‘Move’ which imposes a ‘Step Down’ on attacks against it; ‘Catch & Throw’ triggers a physical Challenge which inflicts the Restrained condition on a success, but Restrained and a Hit on a failure; ‘Impale’ for one Hit; and ‘Poison’ which inflicts a Hit, causes Bleeding, and injects venom.

For the Game Moderator, there is advice on creating encounters, supported by sample creatures and Threats, and on resolving hazards. The ‘Hacker’s Toolbox’ offers a guide to using the various parts of character creation to enforce and foster the flavour and feel of a Genre Set-up in Sanction as well as adding unique elements. This is further supported by advice on creating Threats suitable for the Genre Set-Up. Given the size of Sanction, it should be no surprise that the ‘Hacker’s Toolbox’ is short, but it is succinct, helpful, and to the point.

The Game Moderator is supported with not one, but two Genre Set-Ups. ‘With Guile, Incantation, & Faith’, or ‘.GIF’, is the default, threaded throughout the pages of Sanction as an example. In ‘.GIF’, the Player Characters are second rate adventurers, investigating and clearing out dungeons on behalf of the Grand Guild. A mighty Warrior on a euphoric ‘Weird Out’ has already been through the dungeon and done the hard job of slaughtering the major—and most of the minor—Threats. Now it is the job of the members of the Lesser Orders to investigate and clean up. Having failed to become a true Adventurer like the Warrior, the Player Characters have become blue collar dungeoneers, collecting treasure, recording details, mapping out the complexes, and so on, all while wondering where it went wrong for them. Inspired by B1, In Search of the Unknown for Basic Dungeons & Dragons, the ultimate abandoned-clean-up dungeon, ‘.GIF’ does two things. First is to give characters who would otherwise have been the role of the hireling in traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games a greater role and agency of their own, whilst the second is to provide a means to play just about any dungeon all over again, ideally after the players’ actual adventurers have battled their way through it.

The second Genre Set-Up comes at the end of the book, complete rather than threaded through the book. ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ shifts Sanction from the fantasy genre of ‘.GIF’ to the espionage genre. Not though the action espionage of the superspy James Bond, but the grim, grimy, and pathetic espionage of the Slow Horses series by Mick Herron with dash of John Le Carré. The Player Characters are ex-agents, failures and fuck-ups, washed out of active service, but not out of the service. Exactly why is something that will have to be worked out between the player and the Game Moderator during Agent creation. Reassigned to small towns and cities like Wolverhampton or Grimsby, the Agents do data processing, combing through reports and archives, and so on, before sorting it and sending it back to head office, with no explanations as to why or what the information is for. It is make-work, a window job, and that is all that the Agent will have until he retires. Yet the agent hopes, and worse, he cannot help but want to apply his tradecraft.

‘Agency: Outlet Work’ changes its Resources to Network, Cover, and Tradecraft. It has its own Lifepath table and it adds Espionage Specialties, Bonds, and a Burn Track. Bonds are connections to NPCs who might help the Agent, whilst the Burn Track measures his stress. Rolling a one or two on a Resource when undertaking a Challenge in public or dealing with an actual intelligence asset, calling in a favour, or resorting to an act of violence, will increase an Agent’s Burn Track. As it increases, there will be Consequences, which get worse and worse, until the Agent washes out completely, is killed, or arrested. What is noticeable here is how bad violence and fights are in ‘Agency: Outlet Work’. There is not a fight-related Resource and fights are so stressful that in the long term, the Consequences are career or life ending, taking into account the fact that the Agents of ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ have no career. There is advice for the Game Moderator and a table of prompts, but no scenario. Admittedly there is no scenario for ‘.GIF’, but you really wish that there were for ‘Agency: Outlet Work’. (Fortunately, there is one available, For A Rainy Day.) ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ is deliciously pathetic and rife with roleplaying possibilities.

Physically, Sanction is a well presented, tidy book. The artwork is decent and the book is easy to read.

Although its heritage lies in the Old School Renaissance, Sanction is not part of it, but more tangentially adjacent to it, having adopted a more narrative approach in terms of its mechanics and storytelling. The simplicity of the mechanics make it very easy to learn and play, and they also make it easy to adjust to other Genre Set-Ups. Perhaps a third Genre Set-Up might have been included in Sanction to showcase its flexibility more fully, but there can be no doubt that ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ not only does that, but is also worth the price of admission alone. It would also be good to see other Genre Set-Ups, perhaps as an anthology from a variety of authors, showing off Sanction in other genres. Overall, Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks is an impressive design, providing simple, but not simplistic, mechanics that encourage roleplaying and storytelling whilst also being flexible enough to adapt to different genres and settings.

The Other OSR—Forgotten Duty

The Book of the Key is an elaborate monastic chronicle written in the sixteenth century in an obscure Italian dialect that describes events and happenings so fantastical that they are at odds with the known history of the period, yet the work is anything other than a satire. The marginalia is even strange, annotations consisting of esoteric formulae and prayers dedicated to an unknown and unnamed god. The god is described as having the power to permit movement from this world to another, from this reality to another… It is currently held in the library of the University of Navarra, in the city of Pamplona, in north-east Spain. It is also rumoured to have been stolen from its previous owners, and that they, the Knights Hospitaller, seek to return to their possession. There are many reasons why someone might want to examine The Book of the Key. Perhaps to right a wrong by engaging in the many-worlds theory of quantum physics to shift to another reality where the right rather than the wrong took place. Perhaps to open, or even close, the way, perhaps to prevent access to our world by otherworldly entities such as Dimensional Shamblers or Hounds Out of Time. Perhaps the book points to the means to locate an artefact that will be inimical to a true enemy. Perhaps the connections to the Mythos of the book are already known and it has fallen into the wrong hands, and whoever that is, they need to be stopped from using it.

This is the set-up—or rather the set-ups—to Forgotten Duty, a modern day scenario for Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition, the Old School Renaissance-adjacent roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror published by Just Crunch Games. Whatever the reason for the Investigators to want to look at the book, the curator at the museum, Gustavo Ibáñez, will sadly explain that the book is currently not held by the university, but has been loaned to a benefactor to the university, Count Cielo Al-Hamrā. Fortunately, he can arrange an interview with the count and when this happens, the count will be very gracious and tell the Investigators that he has returned the book. The book though, has already been shipped off elsewhere, or has it?

There is a strangeness that runs deep not only into the question of the missing book, but also in the city of Pamplona itself. The inhabitants seem to be suffering from collective trauma, there are reports of missing persons and missing persons posters across the city, and the Investigators begin to suffer strange dreams, nightmares that point to the city’s dark history and the invasion of the Romans centuries before. Random strangers approach the Investigators, some to question their interest and reason for being in the city, others steal from them, or worse, assault them as an act of revenge, but for what? Then there is Count Cielo Al-Hamrā, a man that the Investigators have met, but whom nobody can quite recall too much about beyond his being a great benefactor to the city.

Ultimately, the investigation will point to Count Cielo Al-Hamrā as being key to getting to the heart of the mystery in Pamplona, let alone being key to locating the book. In fact, by this time, the location of the book almost becomes secondary to the need to find just what is really going on in Pamplona. Doing so will take the Investigators to the count’s home, a villa with an oddly unlived in feel and signs of strange activity, whilst the staff genially about their odd duties. This is to the extent that the Investigators may be able to explore the villa almost unimpeded, though something is surely waiting for the truly curious. Which should of course, include the Investigators.

Forgotten Duty supports the Game Master with details about Pamplona and the University of Navarra, descriptions and details of the odd encounters that the Investigators might have around the city, and the means to create the dreams that they begin to have. There are missing persons posters too, as handouts. Throughout, there are footnotes as well, and these will help the Game Master add flavour and detail to the scenario.

Physically, Forgotten Duty is decently done, but a little rough around the edges. It does need another edit as there is missing text, but the maps are good, as are the few handouts.

Forgotten Duty is a solidly weird and creepy scenario. It can easily be played in a single session and so be run as a convention scenario, in fact more easily than it can be worked into a campaign. It is also just as easy to adapt it to the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror of your choice.

—oOo—

Just Crunch Games and All Rolled Up will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Cthulhu ‘Old Style’ like its 1981

The first thing that you notice about Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition is how surprisingly white and colourful it is. There is bold use of colour in its chapter headings and then the rest of the book is simple, black on white text. Which gives it a clean, modern aesthetic, that is, of course, easy to read, but also in keeping with the setting for Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition. That setting is the modern day of the here and now because just like H.P. Lovecraft set his stories in his time, so the Game Master’s scenarios are, by default, set in her time. This does not mean that Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition cannot be set in other historical periods, but the modern day is the default. Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition is the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, which means it pitches ordinary men and women in extraordinary situations and confronts them with the true sanity-leeching mysteries of the universe as portrayed in the stories by H.P. Lovecraft. For its mechanics, it uses The Black Hack, Second Edition, the player-facing retroclone originally published in 2016. Lastly, the simple layout and use of colour allows the artwork of Paul Tomes and Andrés Sáez Martínez to really stand out.

Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition is published by Just Crunch Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Notably content for both editions of the roleplaying game is compatible and the roleplaying game is designed for quick and easy play, especially Investigator creation. After an introduction and a decent example of play, Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition wastes very little time in explaining the rules. For its core mechanic, whenever a Player Character—or Investigator—wants to take an action against a threat that will either hurt or hinder the Investigator, his player makes a Save against an appropriate attribute by rolling under it. If the roll is successful, the Investigator avoids the Threat, but suffers its consequences if his player roles equal to the attribute or higher. This is always player-facing, so whenever an Investigator wants to punch a cultist, his player will roll a Save against his Investigator’s Strength, but to avoid the cultist punching the Investigator, his player would roll a Save against his Investigator’s Dexterity. Depending upon the situation the player can also run with Advantage or Disadvantage.

The investigative aspect of Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition is handled via Resources. These categorised into three types—Investigative, Sanity, and Supplies. All types of Resource work in the same way. Each is represented by a die type. When a Resource check is called for, the Resource die is rolled. If the result is a one or a two, the Resource suffers a Break, meaning that the Resource is partially used up. Eventually the Resource die is stepped down to a four-sided die and when that suffers a Break, it is completely used up and thus Broken. Investigative Resources are divided between Smokes and Flashlights. Flashlights are divided into Smokes and Flashlights. Flashlights are used to get clues through studying, finding clues, spotting things, and so on, whilst Smokes cover gaining clues via interaction, financial means, or connections. When a one or a two is rolled on either Investigative Resource, a clue is still found, but something bad happens to the Investigator. When Flashlights is Broken, the Investigator is burned out and exhausted, whilst when Smokes is Broken the Investigator has brought too much attention upon himself.

In terms of running and playing the game, Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition lays its principles for both the Game Master and the player early on. For the former, this includes giving out plenty of information, setting the stakes when the Investigators are faced by threats, giving them opportunities and choices, and so on, whilst for the latter, to be a part of the story and support the other Investigators’ role in the story, to investigate and ask questions, to focus on survival rather than fighting, and more. Much of this will be familiar to veterans of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but not everyone is, so the advice here is more than welcome.

An Investigator in Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition has six Saves (or attributes)—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma—that are rated between three and eighteen. He also has four Resources— Hit Die, Sanity, Flashlights, and Smokes—and various Benefits, including a Skill, and various Assets. Two methods of creating an Investigator are provided. Freeform gives the widest choice, but the simplest method is to pick one of the roleplaying game’s six Archetypes. There are six Archetypes—Adventurer, Bruiser, Performer, Philanthropist, Ruffian, and Scholar. Each determines the Resource die values for an Investigator’s Resources, gives a single Special Ability and lets the player choose another from a choice of three, and either rolls for or chooses an Occupation and an associated skill. There is actually a lot of flexibility within each Archetype, so that an Adventurer can be an Archaeologist or an Aviator, but he could also an Aristocrat or a Sales Rep.

Henry Brinded
Strength 13 Dexterity 12 Constitution 10 Wisdom 15 Intelligence 18 Charisma 11
Sanity D10 Flashlights D12 Smokes D10 Hit Die D4 Armed 1 Unarmed 1
Hit Points: 4
Special Abilities: Iron Mind, Deduction, Erudite
Occupation: Academic
Skill: Language (Latin)

An Investigator is meant to be fragile, although as a group, Investigators do have access to a pool of Fortune Points which allow a failed Save or Resource check to be rerolled. Combat follows from the core rules and in spite of Investigators having access to Fortune Points, enforces their fragility. They have relatively few Hit Points, weapons can be deadly, and armour is rare.

Sanity is handled as a Resource die in Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition. When an Investigator is confronted with something truly terrifying or the effects of the Mythos and the Investigator’s Sanity suffers a Break, it indicates that he has encountered something so hideous or unreal that he has temporarily lost his connection with reality. Sanity being Broken means that the Investigator has lost focus or is overwhelmed by the alienness of what he is confronted with. The Investigator becomes permanently insane when the number of times a Sanity Break occurs equals the Resource die for his Sanity. However, not all horror is equal, and it is possible to suffer a Shock instead of an incidence of Insanity when his Sanity suffers a Break.

The moments when an Investigator is likely to be at his most fragile is in confronting the Mythos. Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition does not include an extensive list of Mythos entities and creatures. It goes even further by not actually including stats for several of the Old Ones, but instead discusses their relationship with humanity (or in some cases, humanity’s ‘supposed’ relationship with them). This moves the seven discussed—Azathoth, Cthulhu, Hastur, Nodens, Nyarlathoptep, Shub-Niggurath, and Yog-Sothoth—into narrative roles rather than something that can be physically defeated. Only eight lesser creatures and races are given more detail, both in terms of background and mechanics. Traditional Mythos creatures such as the Deep Ones, Elder Things, Ghoul-Kin, Rhan-Tegoth, Shambler, Shoggoth, and Yuggothi, are joined by the Deathless, the equivalent of Keziah Mason from ‘The Dreams of the Witch-House’ and its antagonist. All of these are given nicely detailed descriptions and an excellent illustration. In each case, their stats are very simply presented, there is a note as to their motivation, and their origins, purpose, and allegiances are discussed, along with options and variants. It is interesting to note that Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition makes clear that Deep Ones are not the equivalent of Orcs or Goblins in the Cthulhu Mythos.

Both Mythos tomes and artefacts in Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition work in a fashion similar to Mythos antagonists. Each volume or item is measured by its Index, representing both the potency of its content and the danger it represents to the reader; Ire is the attention garnered by its possession—and especially—the use its lore, power, or spells; and Lore the ‘benefit’ gained from the successful study or use of it. The latter might a modifier to a Save, an Advantage on a later Save, a Skill, one or more Spells, and so on. In the case of the Index and Ire factors, the Investigator will need to make a Save against them. Failure in the case of Index means that the Investigator suffers a Shock and in the case of Ire, a failure means that the attention and scrutiny of cultists or other forces of the Mythos has been drawn to the tome or artefact and thus to the Investigator. This can lead to more direct encounters with them or set up difficulties in the story later on, meaning that Ire and a failure to Save against it has narrative rather than mechanical consequences. One thing not explored here are Mythos artefacts—the focus is entirely on tomes rather than objects.

The list of Mythos tomes avoids the classics of Lovecraftian investigative horror, so no Necronomicon, De Vermiis Mysteriis, or Unausprechlichen Kulten. There are several quite detailed examples though and tables for the Game Master to create her own. In terms of spells, there is a mix of the familiar and unfamiliar. Thus, there is The Voorish Sign and Elder Sign alongside Deceiver’s Charm and Cyclopean Shift. Of course, knowing and casting magic has consequences. Knowing any spells automatically imposes a reduction in the Resource die for an Investigator’s Sanity and casting spells requires a personal sacrifice, there being the possibility of an Investigator losing a point from of his six Saves. In addition, casting a spell triggers a save against the Ire of that spell, potentially attracting the attention of the cultists and other Mythos entities. Magic in Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition is deadly and dangerous, and its use is definitely not for the faint-hearted.

The scenario in Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition is ‘Save Innsmouth’. This is an expansion and development of Save Innsmouth: A Student Documentary. It is specifically written to be run in two hours, but is easily expanded to run in a longer, fuller session. In line with the rest of the roleplaying game, it is set in the modern day, taking place in Lovecraft Country in New England in the modern day, specifically in and around Innsmouth. In the short version, it begins en media res, with the Investigators trapped in the tunnels and caverns of the blighted town, decades ago shattered by the 1928 FBI raid. Already bruised and battered—and low on Resources—they must find their out of their rough and rancid prison, hunted by a strange creature… In the longer version, the Investigators, students at Miskatonic University and members of its Miskatonic Heritage Club, have travelled to Innsmouth, first by bus and then by hiking, in order to examine and photograph the pre-Prohibition town before it is completely bulldozed to make way for a health spa. It is a scenario in two parts. The bulk of its investigation is done in the journey to Innsmouth, whilst the action takes place in the second part, the imprisonment, which is what is played out in the shorter version of the scenario. If there is an issue with the scenario it is that the author talks about it for four pages before actually telling what the scenario is about. This is frustrating, although the information given in those four pages is both relevant and useful.

Lastly, Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition gives a short discussion of campaigns, supporting it with a series of tables of prompts and pointers that can be used to bring the Investigators and get them sufficiently intrigued by a mystery to want to investigate. These are good starting points which the Game Master will of course, have to develop. It also introduces the concept of Remnants, the consequences of encountering the Mythos upon an Investigator’s personality. Roleplaying these will reward the players as a whole with an extra Fortune Point.

Physically, Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition is nicely presented. It needs a slight edit, but is very accessible, clean, and tidy, and the artwork is excellent. This does include some artwork generated by MidJourney AI, but the publisher has made a charitable donation to the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution.

Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition is a streamlined and cleaner presentation of the earlier, The Cthulhu Hack, much like Old School Essentials is a cleaner and more accessible update of the Basic Dungeons & Dragons designed by Tom Moldvay. It is not just cleaner and more accessible, the book itself is handier and easy to use. The downside of that is that it is not comprehensive in its treatment of the Mythos, but it is complete in and of itself. In play, the consistency of the rules, especially Resources, means that an investigation becomes one where every effort matters, not just facing the Mythos, since there is a chance of depletion, of a Break, each time an effort is made towards the investigation. Thus, the consequences of an investigation are wider than mere loss of Sanity and the tension of looking into mysteries is prevalent throughout an investigation rather than in just the confrontation with the Mythos.

Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition is an excellent redesign and reimplantation of The Cthulhu Hack. It provides a solid introduction to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying and for any looking for a Old School Renaissance compatible roleplaying game dealing with the Cthulhu Mythos, Cthulhu Hack, Second Edition is the obvious choice.