Grim & Perilous Lite

In the Long Sixteenth Century all that stands between chaos and disorder is the Empire. The Empire is the bastion of law and order, but it is a law for those who can afford it and an order which keeps the citizenry in its place. Chaos comes in the form of all that would disrupt this law and order. Plague wends its way back and forth across the land. Feudalism has been displaced by the rise of the burghers and the wealthy middle class and the role of mercenaries on the battlefield, which have made the role of the knight irrelevant. Religion has become more than a matter of just faith with the schism the church. Adhering to one faith and not the other can get you butchered, letting getting caught up on the battlefield, whether as conscript or mercenary. The poor, the labouring classes, and the craftsmen all look to the Empire for stability and their safety, but yearn for something better knowing they are unlikely ever to truly gain it and so change their lot in life. The Empire wants them kept in their place, their labour making the rich even richer, their taxes filling the crown’s coffers, and their bodies, willing or unwilling, ready to be thrown into the quagmire of war against the enemy which threatens from without… Yet there is no great Chaos. Instead, there are the men and women who stand up and decide that theirs is not a life as dictated by the Empire. They seek lives of adventure and change, wanting to make difference in their lives first, but perhaps the lives of others too. As much as their agency can lead to their being employed by the wealthy, they can become a threat to the natural order. This is the setting for Kriegsmesser, a roleplaying game best described as Troika! meets Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Kriegsmesser is written and published by Gregor Vuga following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of ZineQuest #3. It offers a range of character types with a light set of mechanics predicated on degrees of failure, solid advice on running the game, and a very much implied setting. That setting is one akin to Mittel Europe, roughly at the time of the Thirty Years War, so akin to that of the Empire and the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Although there is no specific setting, where Kriegsmesser differs from the original roleplaying game of ‘grim and perilous adventure’ is that it is humanocentric—there are no rules for playing anything other than Humans, there is no such thing as Corruption or supernatural Chaos, and so no bestiary of supernatural creatures. This is because the Player Characters are the chaos, though if the Game Master wants to include it, there are rules for Corruption which have a corrosive effect upon a Player Character, all too likely driving him into the clutches of Chaos.

A Player Character in Kriegsmesser is defined by a Career, four or five skills and some possessions. He also has ten points of Toughness and six points of Luck. To create a character, a player rolls ‘d66’ and notes the details of the character down. He then chooses a name. The options include the Street Rat, the Starving Artist, the Labourer, the Charlatan, the Revolting Peasant, the Vermin Snatcher, the Clueless Noble, and more. Each one of the Careers given in Kriegsmesser is accompanied by a short, but engaging piece of flavour text.

Helena Perun
Career: Slayer
Skills: Read Signs (Demonic) 3, Notice 3, Fight (Monsters) 2, Gossip 1, Track 1
Toughness: 10
Luck: 6
Possessions: Kickass Hat, Holy Water, Silver Knife

Mechanically, Kriegsmesser uses its own dice pool mechanics rather than those of Troika! Whenever a player wants his character to do something and the character has the relevant skill, he rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the skill and looks for the highest result. If the highest result is a six, then the character succeeds without incurring any trouble. If the result is a five or four, then the character succeeds, but incurs some trouble. A roll of three or less is a failure. What form the trouble takes when a player rolls a four or five, can be anything from a weaker or partial result to bowing out gracefully or a complication. The Game Master is encouraged to present the player with a couple of options and essentially bargain with him as the possible trouble his character suffers. If a character does not have an appropriate skill, then his player can spend points of Luck to have dice to make the skill test. Luck can be recovered through rest, through prayer, or through some festive or merrymaking activities. Luck then forms an important resource and something that a player needs to expand with a care. Of course, every roll in Kriegsmesser should be important, but when or where, Luck is even more important.

Combat in Kriegsmesser is intended to be nasty and brutal, favouring characters—Player Characters and NPCs—who are combat trained. Otherwise, a Player Character has to rely upon his Luck and an NPC, a single die. Often, it is enough to draw a sword to persuade an NPC or possibly a Player Character to back down in the face of potential violence. Kriegsmesser does give more optional rules if the Game Master and her players want a less narrative influenced combat system. These cover initiative, armour (which reduces damage), various weapon types (from warhammer to pistol), mighty blows (bonuses to the base damage if sixes are rolled in an attack), and vantage (having a higher vantage grants a bonus die). Once a Player Character loses all of his Toughness, the next blow will probably kill him, but another option allows for Terrible Injuries, like losing multiple toes to one foot, a blow to the fleshy soft bits which forces the Player Character to double over in pain and vomit, or a strike which smashes the skull and damaging the brain, leaving him to collapse to the floor, dead. (No head flying off several feet in a random direction, sadly.)

For the Game Master, there is advice on the running the game, in particular, making the world real and the lives of the Player Characters exciting, being generous with information, and imagining and conveying a darkly humorously dark tone. There is advice too on how to interpret rolls, in particular, various forms of trouble if a Player Character does not roll a complete success. There are quick and dirty rules too to create and run NPCs, as well establishing relationships between them, as well as creating scenarios around towns. These tables are fairly short and are likely to be used up quickly. Six sample NPCs are included as potential encounters, which are nicely done. Rounding out Kriegsmesser is a discussion of the period in which it is set and ideas as to where it be set outside of a Holy Roman Empire-like setting. The latter is perhaps the least interesting or useful section in Kriegsmesser, but the inclusion of a decent bibliography makes up for it.

Physically, Kriegsmesser is decently presented, making good use of period woodcut artwork. The fanzine is general well written, but could have done with a slightly better organisation in places.

Kriegsmesser is Troika! meets Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, in terms of its simplicity and stripped-down style of play. Yet whilst it is by design set in a world similar to that of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, it shifts its window upon that world. Traditionally, the Player Characters are caught between being in society of the Empire and not, but by not having an ‘other’—typically Chaos in one form or another—Kriegsmesser pushes them into being that ‘other’ and as a consequence the roleplaying game echoes the politics of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, First Edition (if not its setting and history). If there is an issue with this, it is that without a setting of its own, Kriegsmesser never gets to show this off properly.

If the Game Master can provide a setting, then there is plenty of scope in Kriegsmesser to provide an engagingly light and simple option for grim and perilous adventure.

1995: Everway Visionary Roleplaying

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—

In 1995, the hobby gaming industry was deep into the collectible card game craze. Magic: The Gathering has been published in 1993, had become incredibly popular, and made its publisher, Wizards of the Coast, a lot of money. In response, other publishers—large and small—understandably, followed suit, and as they competed in this market, so the hobby gaming industry turned away from the types of games which had supported it over the previous two decades. By 1995, the number of new roleplaying games published that year had diminished to less than half that in previous years. Yet in that year, Wizards of the Coast would publish a roleplaying game which was radically different in concept and format to almost anything which had come before it. A roleplaying game which was so radically different, it would flop. Despite the lack of success though, its simplicity, its focused concept, and its emphasis upon storytelling and drama would all flower in the ‘Indie Roleplaying-Movement’ of the noughties, the concepts of which would go on to be absorbed into the mainstream during the teens. That roleplaying game is Everway Visionary Roleplaying.

Everway Visionary Roleplaying comes in a large box and looks like a traditional roleplaying game, but open up the box and it is clear that it is anything but. In addition to the one-hundred-and-six-two page ‘Playing Guide’, the sixty-four page ‘Gamemastering Guide’ and the fourteen page ‘Guide to the Fortune Deck’, the roleplaying game includes over a hundred, full-colour cards. These consist of the ninety card Vision card Deck, ten Source cards, and thirty-six Fortune card Deck. This is in addition to the two maps, twelve blank Spherewalker sheets, and eleven pre-generated ready-to-play Spherewalker sheets, but what was missing from the box for Everway Visionary Roleplaying is dice. This is because in terms of its mechanics Everway Visionary Roleplaying is diceless. Instead, it uses a combination of the Fortune card Deck and narrative efficacy to determine the outcome of a task or story. Of course, diceless roleplaying games had been seen before, notably Phage Press’ Amber Diceless Roleplaying from 1991, as had card-driven roleplaying games, such as R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s Castle Falkenstein from 1994. Everway Visionary Roleplaying, though, does not use numbered cards as in the use of a standard playing Deck of cards by Castle Falkenstein, but rather the images upon its cards. Hence Everway Visionary Roleplaying was a visionary roleplaying game in more ways than one.

The setting for Everway Visionary Roleplaying is a multiverse of Spheres—or worlds, each world consisting of numerous different Realms—each connected by a series of Gates. Known Spheres include Ashland, a land of smoking volcanos, nasty cockatrices, and scheming goblins; Canopy, a singular, enormous tree, its inside populated by humans, its roots home to extensive cave systems filled with fantastic creatures; and Pearl of Waves, an undersea kingdom where travel is conducted via bubbles of air or the mouths of giant fish. Typical Realms include the Land of a Million Deities, a conservative Realm of hereditary kings and queens sanctioned by the priests and priestesses of many gods; The Middle Kingdom, a sophisticated Realm dedicated to knowledge and bureaucracy; and the Smith’s Realm, a realm of conquered territories, controlled by regional governors. It is a fantasy setting, one of low magic and high magic, in which demons, angels, godlings, spirits, fairies, dragons, unicorns, and other creatures can be found, but the most common species, in various shapes and forms, to be found throughout the Spheres is mankind, all able to understand the common language known as ‘The Tongue’, a gift from the gods. Perhaps the most famous location in all of the Spheres is that of Everway, a city at the heart of Sphere that has not the two gates typical to most Spheres, but a grand total of three-score-and-ten—if not more!

Every ‘Outsider’ who comes to Everway, experiences the city in a different way. To some it can be well-mannered and bright, to others a city of dark alleys and citizens ready to exploit every visitor or sell them any vice, or ordered and cosmopolitan. It is though, an ancient city, matriarchal, but with a king, and numerous families of note, each of which controls a particular aspect of the city. For example, the Keeper family maintains and guards the Gates, the Scratch family consists of scholars and bureaucrats, and the Wailer family specialises in ceremony of any kind. One type of rare individual drawn to the city of Everway is the ‘Spherewalker’, capable of using the Gates freely and taking the one-week journey to traverse between one Sphere and the next. They can be powerful mages, mighty warriors, enigmatic Shaman, and more, but in becoming Spherewalker, they may be seeking to fulfil a personal quest, to bring justice and an end to evil in any or all Spheres, to search for treasure and personal gain, to atone for crimes committed, or even to gather research and information for the Library of All Worlds in the city of Everway. Each Player Character in Everway Visionary Roleplaying is one of these Spherewalkers.

A Spherewalker is defined first by his Name, typically a common word, or one based on a common word, then a Motive, for example, Mystery, Wanderlust, or Adversity. He also has a Virtue, some way in which he is gifted—it could be a personal trait, a magical gift, or an aspect of fortune. His Fault represents a particular weakness or vulnerability, again a personal trait, magical curse, or aspect of fortune, whilst his Fate is the challenge he currently faces. He is likely to have one or more Powers, limited in scope, but still powerful and distinctive, for example, ‘Fast Healing’, ‘Magical Singing’, ‘Cat Familiar’, ‘Throw Fire’, ‘Invulnerable’, and so on. The ‘Playing Guide’ includes many examples, but a player is encouraged to create his own, a Power typically being a combination of Major, Frequent, and Versatile. This is in addition to the free power which each Player Character Spherewalker possesses. A Spherewalker has four Elements—Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. Air is intellect and communication; Fire, force, athleticism, and combat prowess; Earth, toughness and willpower; and Water, empathy, perception, and wisdom. These are rated between two and nine, each value exponentially greater than the one below it. For each Element, a Spherewalker has a speciality, a skill or ability in which he is better when using that Element. An Element can also suggest a career, such as warrior or acrobat for Fire or poet or physician for Air and Water.

A Spherewalker can also have magic, a mage typically specialising in one of the elements. Thus, Words of Power for Air, Soil and Stone for Earth, Flux for Fire, and Open Chalice for Water. As with Elements, Magic is exponentially more powerful the greater a rating a mage has in it, each rating granting particular advantages. So at a Fluxx rating of three, a Spherewalker can alter minor features, for example, aging milk, freshening the air, rusting metal, and so on, whilst a Soil and Stone rating of six would enable a Mage to save a Realm from a plague or heal a person. How often and for how long a Mage can perform such magics is measured by his Earth Element.

To create a Spherewalker, a player goes through six stages. These start with the player selecting or drawing five cards from the Vision card Deck. In addition to the full-colour illustration on the front, each Vision card has four or five questions on the back about the image on the front. For example, the card depicting two goatherds amidst a field of goats, one of goatherds seeming to steal away with a goat in his arms, has the questions, “How are the two goatherds related?”, “What is the sundial for?”, “How far away is the nearest village? Where is their home?”, and “Why is one goatherd crying?”. The player uses the Vision cards and the questions as inspiration. After deciding upon a Name, Motive, Virtue, Fault, and Fate, the player assigns twenty points between his Spherewalker’s Powers, Elements, and Magic, though all Spherewalkers will have Powers or Magic. The process is in part meant to be collaborative, each player specifically taking the time to introduce his Spherewalker and who he is, whilst the last stage involves the players asking questions about each other’s Spherewalkers, helping each other to understand who their Spherewalkers are. The end result though—and the author’s advice is that everyone should work towards this—should be playable, compatible with the rest of the party, and be prepared to grow and change.

Goat-sent grew up a simple goatherder, alongside her father, tending to the herds belonging to the village in the valley below until she turned thirteen and one goat began talking to her. Not just talking to her, but talking to her things that would happen—and then they did. When the villagers learned of it, they were at first curious, then fearful, and ordered the goat killed. This would happen at the sundial where many of the village’s religious ceremonies took place, but she could not let the goat be killed and ran away with it. Escaping for the first time through a Gate, she sought sanctuary and answers with a Sage, who taught her to focus upon a candle to enter into trances in which she would foretell the future. In time, the rich and powerful of his Realm came to hear their fortune, but not once was she able to tell of the Sage’s future. Yet ultimately, she found the sanctuary constraining and decided to leave, not to go back through the Gate she had used but via the harbour. The ship she embarked upon took her far away, further than the ship had sailed before, from one Realm to the next, where Capybara and her human companion, told her that she was a Spherewalker and that she should follow the sun through to Everway, where perhaps she might find answers. So far, the peoples of Everway have presented with answer upon answer as to the nature of her gift, but none can agree which is correct. So, she seeks answers beyond in the Realms.

Name: Goat-sent
Motive: Mystery
Virtue: Truth (Knowledge) 
Fault: Effort Misspent (War)
Fate: Maturity (Winter)

Air: 5 (Singing)
Earth: 4  (Herding)
Fire: 4 (Living under the sun)
Water: 5 (Tracking)

Powers:
Goat companion, 3 (frequent, major, versatile)
Mystic Eye, 3 (frequent, major, versatile)
Goat Tongue, 0

Mechanically, Everway Visionary Roleplaying provides not one, but three means of resolution—the Law of Karma, the Law of Drama, and the Law of Fortune—and the Game Master is free to use whichever one she prefers or feels best fits the situation. With the Law of Karma, a Spherewalker’s Elements, Specialities, Powers, and Magic determine the outcome of an intended action. If the Game Master judges that the appropriate Element, Speciality, Power, or Magic is sufficient, then the Spherewalker will succeed. If not, he will fail. The Law of Karma also comes into play in the long term, potentially rewarding or penalising a Spherewalker depending upon whether an action can be seen as positive or negative. This is of course, up to the Game Master to judge.

The Law of Drama is even simpler. Essentially, the needs of the narrative and the story determines the outcome of an action. Is it appropriate or satisfying at the point in a story that a Spherewalker escape from the cell or does the villain need to turn up to deliver a monologue? Which outcome would make the story better—more interesting, more exciting, more intriguing? The Law of Fortune is slightly more complex, but again relies upon a high degree of improvisation and interpretation upon the part of the Game Master. To determine the outcome of an action, the Game Master draws from the Fortune Deck and interprets the Fortune card as it relates to the situation. Typically, this simply requires the Game Master to draw the one card per situation, whether that is for use of an Element, a Power, or Magic. Going from one law to the next, from the Law of Karma to the Law of Drama to the Law of Fortune involves increasing levels of improvisation upon the part of Game Master and acceptance and participation upon the part of the players and their Spherewalkers to buy into and engage with that improvisation.

Now all of these resolution mechanics also apply to combat as well, whether that is the Law of Karma determining that a Spherewalker is skilled or powerful enough to overcome a foe, the Law of Drama determining that it is appropriate in terms of the narrative for a Spherewalker to win or lose a conflict, or the Law of Fortune relying upon a Fortune card and its interpretation to determine if a Spherewalker wins the conflict or not. This makes combat simple and fast, effectively deemphasising combat as a means of overcoming problems in Everway Visionary Roleplaying. However, combat can be handled in more dramatic fashion, still using the Law of Fortune, but drawing not the once, but from round to round, exchange to exchange. This really works best when a fight or conflict is important, rather than with every single scuffle or brawl.

Mechanically—and thematically, the Fortune Deck lies at the heart of Everway Visionary Roleplaying. Out of the box, it is a deck of thirty-six, full colour, illustrated cards. Every card can be reversed and besides a title, has two simple pieces of text. For example, the text for the Inspiration card is ‘Creativity’, but ‘Lack of Imagination’ when reversed. It is this text which the Game Master is interpreting when applying the Law of Fortune. In the game though, the Fortune Deck is divination tool found in every Realm, but not necessarily as a deck of cards. It could be a great series of bells rung and interpreted in random order each day or the order in which a flock of birds returns to roost at dusk, but it is present in every Realm. The Fortune Deck influences every character—NPC or Spherewalker—and every Realm, so that they each have a Virtue, a Flaw, and a Fate, all drawn from the Fortune Deck. Similarly, each Realm can be created by drawing cards from the Vision Deck and interpreting them just as each player did during the creation of his Spherewalker. The Fortune Deck though, is flawed—by intention out of game, and because in-game, it adds an element of chaos. It was a deity of chaos who stole the thirty-sixth card, leaving a void, and this void, known as the Usurper, is filled with a profoundly negative influence, such as Despair, Sacrifice, or Vengeance, from one Realm to the next. The influence of the Usurper and this negative influence in each Realm will ultimately underlie any Quest that the Spherewalkers undertake there.

Everway Visionary Roleplaying is played as a series of Quests, and again, these can be created using the Vision cards as inspiration and the Fortune Deck to create the conflict in the Quest. Advice for the Game Master covers both the creation of Quests and Realms, and what makes both a good Quest and a good Realm. It also covers running the Quest, bringing the Spherewalkers together, and more. Half of the ‘Gamemastering Guide’ is given over to ‘Journey to Stonedeep’, a lengthy, detailed Quest designed to get a Game Master started with her Everway Visionary Roleplaying game. Several other Quests are outlined in the rest of the ‘Gamemastering Guide’ along with the advice. The much longer ‘Playing Guide’ introduces the setting of Everway in broad detail, enabling the Game Master to develop the particular details as necessary, should she want to involve her Spherewalkers in its daily life, politics, and other events, before guiding both player and Game Master through the stages of Spherewalker creation, and explaining and advising about the rules. The ‘Guide to the Fortune Deck’ explains the Fortune Deck in more detail, its use as a means of divination, and the cards in the Fortune Deck—their correspondences, their meanings, and reversed meanings. If the mechanics to Everway Visionary Roleplaying are simple and easy to learn, in comparison, learning to interpret the meanings of the cards in the Fortune Deck is not. So careful study of the ‘Guide to the Fortune Deck’ is warranted, though as a guide and means of interpretation, rather than being proscriptive. Some advice though could have been included though on how to interpret various situations using the Fortune Deck.

Physically, Everway Visionary Roleplaying is nicely produced and presented. The three books, each 8½ by 7-inches in size, are done in black and white and either pale blue or pale ochre, illustrated throughout with art taken from the Vision Deck, though in black and white rather than colour. The pre-generated Spherewalker sheets are attractively done in full colour, as are all of the cards in the various Decks. The cards in the Vision Deck are done on thick card, and have the feel of collectable trading cards, whilst the cards of the Fortune Deck are more like traditional playing cards—or those of Magic: the Gathering. (That said, it is surprising that the cards of the Vision Deck were not printed on similar card stock.) All of this nicely fits into the plastic insert tray in the box and which has room for further cards—more cards were published for the game.

Yet, for all the high quality of the production values—which for 1995 are excellent, what stands out about Everway Visionary Roleplaying is the quality of the writing. It is engaging throughout, it is helpful throughout, it gives numerous examples throughout, it gives advice throughout, it explains what the game is about and what the job of each player is and what he should do to make the game enjoyable for everyone around the table, and what the job of the Game Master is and what she should do to make the game enjoyable for everyone around the table. Alongside the advice and examples, there is discussion of what happened in the designer’s own campaign, which helps to bring the setting to life and to help the prospective Game Master understand the designer’s intentions. It is all fantastically, superbly useful.

All of this advice is necessary, because with as a trio of mechanics as light as presented in the Law of Karma, the Law of Drama, and the Law of Fortune, those mechanics are open to interpretation—though this is both a feature and the very point of the mechanics, and thus not a negative—and if not necessarily bias, then potential misinterpretation. Everway Visionary Roleplaying is designed to be a game suitable for those new to roleplaying and both its writing style and its advice is helpful in that regard. However, the step from a more tradition, dice and stats, simulationist roleplaying game to a narrative driven, diceless roleplaying game like Everway Visionary Roleplaying will be more of a challenge. Players and Game Master alike, more accustomed to such mainstream roleplaying games will find themselves perplexed by the lack of dice, by the very light, interpretative mechanics, by the emphasis upon the narrative rather than the mechanics, and the questions posed as part of Spherewalker creation will find themselves needing to make some adjustments in how they approach and play the roleplaying game. That though was in 1995. They did gaming differently then, but come forward a quarter of a century, and so many of the ideas and concepts behind Everway Visionary Roleplaying have been taken up by wide aspects of the hobby in the time since its publication, such that if they are not part of the mainstream hobby now, they are an accepted part of gaming. 

—oOo—

Rick Swan began his review of Everway Visionary Roleplaying in Dragon Magazine No. 224 (December 1995) by being surprised at the choice of designer for Wizards of the Coast’s new and original roleplaying game and the roleplaying game itself. He described Jonathan Tweet as being talented, but “…not a mainstream kind of guy.” and that whilst he would have expected Wizards of the Coast to want a mainstream product, “In fact, Everway is so far out of the mainstream, it’s barely recognizable as an RPG.” After going into some depth about the roleplaying he states that, “Everway codifies the freeform style favored by me and (I suspect) thousands of other referees. It makes for a brisk game, and Everway, to its credit, plays at blinding speed. But to an unprecedented extent, the success of an Everway adventure depends on the improvisational skills of the referee, his ability to come up with interesting plot twists, characters, and scenic details on the spur of the moment. And players must respond in kind, relying on their imaginations instead of die-rolls to forge their characters’ destinies.” before concluding, “I suspect Tweet has underestimated the average gamer’s aptitude for improvisation. But I could be wrong.”

[As a side note, it curious that Swan concluded with, “I suspect Tweet has underestimated the average gamer’s aptitude for improvisation. But I could be wrong.” (My emphasis.) Given the tone of the review and that Swan thought that Tweet’s earlier Ars Magica would last a year or two, it is quite possible that that what he actually meant was ‘overestimated’. This would better fit the tone and conclusion that the review comes to.] 

Ken & Jo Walton made Everway Visionary Roleplaying a Pyramid Pick in Pyramid Number 17 (January/February ’96). After a lengthy review, they concluded, “By now, you’re probably thinking either “That sounds interesting” or “That sounds awful.” This game is not one for simulationists, who want every detail of the physical world accurately portrayed. But for those roleplayers who want to roleplay in a free-form, improvisational way, Everway is a system which actually supports such play, rather than hemming the game round with rules that straitjacket the players’ character conceptions and hamper speed of play with tables and charts.”

Everway Visionary Roleplaying was reviewed by John Wick in Shadis Issue 25 (March 1996), by which time, the roleplaying game had been picked up by Pagan Publishing, the first of several subsequent publishers. He wrote, “Everyway is a game quite unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. The cost is a little high, it may be a bit too off the mainstream for many, and the characters presented arc definitely not Conan clones (white Anglo-Saxon males) which many may interpret as a tip of the hat to “political Correctness”, but all in all, it’s a great game that looks at every aspect of gaming from a different perspective. And that’s what “visionary” roleplaying is all about.” (Note that in 1995, Everway Visionary Roleplaying cost $34.95.)

—oOo—

Everway Visionary Roleplaying is the television series Sliders meets Roger Zelazny’s Amber, played out across a multiverse where patterns in terms of civilisations and the Fortune Deck resonate and repeat again and again. All focused through a lens of the mythic and the mystic, the latter verging on New Ageism, especially with the use of the Tarot card-like Fortune Deck. (This is in addition to the pattern of three which runs throughout the game—the three laws of resolution, the three aspects of divination, and so on.) It seems amazing that this roleplaying game, with its sparse mechanics, emphasis on the narrative, player-focused questions asked during Spherewalker creation, and lack of dice would be released in the nineties at the height of Magic: the Gathering’s popularity. When almost no other roleplaying games were being published and the roleplaying industry looked to be all but upon its death knell. Yet, all these aspects of its design would be explored further in the late nineties with designs like Robin D. Laws’ Hero Wars—which would become HeroQuest and Jenna K. Moran’s Nobilis, before the ‘Indie Roleplaying-Movement’ enthusiastically took them up and ran helter skelter with them. Designer Jonathan Tweet would himself be subsumed by the mainstream by the end of the nineties, becoming the lead designer on Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, again for Wizards of the Coast, and then as co-designer, bring some of that radicalism, non-mainstream design into the mainstream with 13th Age for Pelgrane Press.

In 1995, Everway Visionary Roleplaying was ground-breaking. With its advice and extensive examples, it showed how diceless roleplaying could be achieved and played and run with a strong emphasis upon the narrative. Both the means of Spherewalker creation—the use of the Vision Deck and the Fortune deck, along with the questions during the process, and the downplay of combat as a means of resolution, fostered engaging roleplaying and alternative means of solving conflicts and problems. It was incredibly well written, packed with advice, and supported with numerous examples, and yet… In 1995, it was too ground-breaking, it was too radical, and with its Tarot-like Fortune Deck, perhaps overly influenced by New Age religion. Ultimately though, it was not mainstream enough, not commercial enough. In 2021, though…?

Today, Everway Visionary Roleplaying still feels sleek, modern, and elegant. Game design has undergone radical changes since its original publication and now, Everway Visionary Roleplaying fits into the marketplace. It does not feel out of place. If the production values look dated, the design does not. Everway Visionary Roleplaying could be played today and nobody would think it weird or different. As radical as it was in 1995 and as influential as it has been over the last twenty-five years, Everway Visionary Roleplaying is a game from the past that fits today.

 —oOo—

A new version of Everway Mythic Roleplaying is currently being funded as part of a Kickstarter campaign. It will be published by The Everway Company.

A Positively Light RPG

Fairyland is a roleplaying game of heroes, where everything is possible, and even the ordinary is extraordinary. It is a roleplaying game of ‘Once Upon a Time’, of being a brave knight fighting dragons, rescuing princesses from evil stepmothers, and of taking the first steps into a world of magic, whether that is as a mouse or robin, squirrel or leprechaun, princess or nymph, farmboy or dwarf, pegasus or cow, fairy or donkey. It draws on sources as diverse as Aladdin, The Hobbit, Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia, Arthurian and Norse myth, and of course, Grimms’ Fairy Tales to present a light roleplaying game of magic, adventure, and wonder. Published by Rogue Games , this marks it as very different in terms of tone and mechanics to the publisher’s other roleplaying games like Colonial Gothic: A historical supernatural role-playing game and Shadow, Sword, & Spell.

A Hero—for that is what each player characters is—in Fairyland is defined by five abilities, ranging from one (Weak) to six (Awesome). These are Strong, Quick, Tough, Smarts, and Stubborn. A Hero also has Health and Luck, as well as Size. The latter determines how much damage the Hero does and what special abilities he might have, though a player will decide what the source of the damage is. So a Hedgehog with a Size of Tiny does one damage, which his player describes as a ‘spiny wrestling move’, whilst a Small Dragon is Huge and inflicts five damage, whether that is stomping on an enemy, a tail swipe, or breathing fire. A Hero also has a special ability depending on his size and species, so a Tiny-sized Robin can fly, but an Elf, Nymph, or you, with a Size of Medium, can wear or use anything. As to who a Hero is, he can be a Fighter, Friend Maker, Rascal, Trickster, or Wizard Apprentice. A Fighter is a warrior; a Friend Maker turns enemies into allies or gets his allies to fight for him; a Rascal is anything from a thief to a pirate; a Trickster is a mischief maker—either clever or magical, the former using his wits to get by whilst the latter uses Tricks; and a Wizard Apprentice casts Spells. 

To create a Hero, a player decides on who and what he is, then distributes sixteen points between Hero’s Abilities. The Hero’s Size determines his Damage, whilst ‘What I am’ sets his Health, Luck, and Stuff, the latter his belongings and the number of Eggs—the currency used in Fairyland—as well as the Hero’s Other Things. These include Spells, Tricks, and so on. Lastly, he decides upon his Hero’s ‘6 Things About Me’, which may or may not be true, may or may not have a game effect (if the Storyteller, as the Game Master in Fairyland is known, allows it), or may just describe the Hero.

Who I am: Oleander Tanglefield
What I am: A Pooka, a Magical Trickster

How good I am:
Strong: 1 Health: 5
Quick: 4 Damage: 3
Tough: 2 Luck: 1
Smarts: 5 Size: Medium
Stubborn: 3

Other Things
Trick—Invisible
+1 to Smarts Tests for escaping

Stuff
Silk rope, 45 Silver Eggs

6 Things About Me
I am six foot tall, white rabbit (when not invisible)
There is nothing better than fine wine (or ale) and company
I cannot shapechange into other animals, but I should be able to
I have an infinite supply of waistcoats (not all of them mine, but they always fit)
Happily gives lifts to strangers, but throws them off when they are annoying

Overall, Hero creation is simple and easy. The rules enable the creation of a wide range of character types, especially with the use of Tricks. Take the ‘Live Like a Fish’ Trick and a player can create a Nymph or the Trick ‘Good Advice’ and he has the basis of a Fairy Godmother type character, whether that is an actual Fairy Godmother or a Lobster helping out a Mermaid Princess. Alternative rules allow ordinary folk, essentially versions of the players as their ten to sixteen year old selves, to cross over into Fairyland and have adventures, whether that is via a spell, a wardrobe, or another item of furniture. 

To do anything in Fairyland, a Hero’s player attempts a Test. The player rolls three six-sided dice and add an Ability to equal or beat a Target Number. Target Numbers range from Feeble (2) and Poor (4) all the way up to Holy Cow! (42) and No Way! (48). When a player rolls, his Hero either succeeds or fails—there is no degree of success or failure, thus reflecting the black or white, yes or no nature of Fairyland as a place. Lots of examples are given, some of them really quite complex, such as running downstairs and chewing gum whilst avoiding traps and thrown objects with its Target Number of Monstrous! (22). The advice for the Storyteller though is to pitch the difficulty for any task somewhere in the middle. So not too high, not too low, but just right. Plus there are scaling rules which allow the Storyteller to adjust both tasks and foes to equal or just exceed the Power Level—equal to their total Ability points—of the average Hero.

Combat uses the same mechanics, but when acting a Hero gets to do one thing, that is Attack, Defend, cast a spell, or use an Ability. Even if a Hero defends, which requires a roll against a Test Number of Remarkable! (12), he can only defend—Dodge, Defend, or Parry—against a single attack. Whether it is better armour or bonuses to attack with Strong Tests, when it comes to the fight, Fighters do have the advantage, but first they have to get there. In keeping with the genre—and much like the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space – The Roleplaying Game—talkers act before combatants, so it is possible for Heroes to talk or charm their way out of a confrontation. Certainly the Friend Maker is best placed to take advantage of this, but whatever role Hero has taken, it is always the better option, since although combat is not necessarily lethal, it can be deadly.

All Heroes have access to another resource—Luck. This can be used to ensure a Hero automatically succeeds at a Test (before or after the roll), force an enemy to fail at a Test, allow him to take another Action, and to restore his Health or that of another Hero to one should have taken too much damage. (A Hero is probably definitely dead should he suffer damage sufficient to reduce his Health to a minus value equal to its starting value. Maybe.) A Hero has one point of Luck per session, but if not used, is lost… but then reset at the beginning of the next session. Now if a Hero is ‘out of Luck’, he can ‘Press his Luck’ in an attempt to regain the used Luck. A Hero can do this as often as he likes, but he is literally using up his future Luck. Which means that in a number of future sessions, the Hero will not have any Luck…

Magic in Fairyland adheres to a simple set of rules. Casting a spell counts as an action, spells can be cast as often as a Wizard Apprentice—or some other spellcasting type—likes, spell duration is always equal to the caster’s Smarts Ability, require a Smarts Test to be successfully cast, and so on. Overall, spellcasting is kept simple and obvious. Fairyland has just five categories of spell—Change, Charm, Enchant, Help, and Hurt, with just a few spells listed under each. In comparison, Tricks only fall under three categories—Enchantments, Pranks, and Curses, though the latter typically falls outside of the Heroes’ purview. Unless, of course, one of their number is subject to such a Curse.

A good half of Fairyland is dedicated to helping the Storyteller set up and run a story. So there is advice on building Villains and making them villainous, focusing on their Power Base—influence, wealth, position, and so on, Goals and Motivations, and Charisma. Now Charisma is not necessarily personal magnetism, but can be allies, sidekicks, and the like. Now of all the elements that go into making up a Villain, this is the least well explained, and here perhaps, the roleplaying game could have done with some actual examples. In comparison, several ideas are suggested under Goals, but none under Charisma. Similar advice covers the creation of background characters and monsters, including a guide to possible stats and traits. It is supported later in the roleplaying game with a range of classic fairy realm beasts and monsters, from Dragons and Ghosts to Skeletons and Unicorns. The advice on the tone of Fairyland nicely pulls from a handful of examples, from Aseop’s Fables to Hans Christian Andersen, whilst that given for handling travel in the realm of fairy stories is a gentle dig at the sort of fantasy roleplaying game which requires bookkeeping (though the anti-example given as an exception, East of the Sun and West O’the Moon, makes me want to go read that).

Instead of just giving a campaign, the author works through an example of building a campaign, tailoring it to a group of players and their varying demands and play styles. This is a rather nice job of rather than telling the prospective Storyteller how to set and run a game of Fairyland, showing them instead. This is actually the best part of the roleplaying game, not just showing the Storyteller the author’s mind at work, but providing her with a worked example that she can use, adapt, or draw inspiration form as is her wont. Lastly, the author provides an example Fairyland, neither big nor small, here or there, summer or winter, night or day… At its heart lies Forever City where wizards and heroes dwell and all roads lead, whilst to the west stands Glass City, the most beautiful and delicate place in all of Fairyland. The Swamp of Darkness to the south is said to be home to the Licorice Witch, whomever she may be, and even further south is found the Mouth of Darkness, a source of great evil. Home to Centaurs, Dwarves, Elves, Fairies, Fauns, Gnome, Goblins, Merpeople, Nymphs, Ogres, Sprites, and Trolls, this Fairyland is sketched out in just about enough detail for the Storyteller to get a feel for it and run a tale or two across its lands.

Physically, Fairyland is a twenty-one centimetre square hardback whose look is that of a long-lost tome left in the forest for trees to grow around it. Inside, it is decently illustrated with a range of full colour pieces, all of a fantastical nature. It needs an edit here and there, and the writing feels initially tentative. Thankfully, it settles down as the author finds his voice when giving advice for the Storyteller in the latter half of the book.

Fairyland suffers from one half being better than the other. That is, the first half is not as good as the second. In the second half, the writing is better and the author feels much more engaged with the subject matter. Now this is not say that the rules to Fairyland are poor or that the various Hero types—Friend Makes, Tricksters, Wizard Apprentices, and so on—are terrible. They are not. They are decent and do a good job of handling the relatively simple demands set by the roleplaying game and genre. Rather that the lack of blurb on the back cover and the all too short introduction at the start of the book before it leaps into an explanation of the rules means that Fairyland undersells itself and its elevator pitch. 

In terms of roleplaying, Fairyland offers a palate cleanser, an opportunity to run and play something lighter, more direct in its style and tone, a change from the doom and gloom, shade of grey of other roleplaying games and is all the more welcome for that. Once it finds it voice, Fairyland is a charmingly positive roleplaying game and an engaging treatment of the fairy tale genre. 

Under Swords & Wizardry's Light

When it comes to the Old School Renaissance, the gamer has plenty of retroclones to choose from, depending upon his preferred version of Dungeons & Dragons. Of course, if you really wanted to play in the Old School style, then what you want is a retroclone which draws from Original Dungeons & Dragons and for that there is no finer starting point than Swords & Wizardry. Originally published in 2008, Swords & Wizardry has proved to be a popular choice of retroclone and despite  being a fantasy roleplaying game, it has actually formed the basis of some Science Fiction roleplaying games, in particular White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying  from Barrel Rider Games and its Pulp Sci-Fi offshoot, Dare the Stars! The Future as it Once Was from Wild Boar Games, LLC. In the decade since, Swords & Wizardry has appeared in various versions, most notably Swords & Wizardry - Complete Rulebook and Swords & Wizardry Light. As its title suggests, the former contains everything you need to play and more, but the latter is a free-to-download and play version that covers the four core Classes of Dungeons & Dragons and First to Third Levels of play. Between the two and released in late 2017, is the latest iteration of the roleplaying game, Swords & Wizardry Continual Light.

The opening sentence of the introduction to Swords & Wizardry Continual Light is as follows: “You remember, don’t you? The sounds of battle heard through the clatter of dice? The shuffling of character sheets? The war stories shared with fellow campaigners?” This perfectly explains what Swords & Wizardry Continual Light is designed as. This is both as an introductory roleplaying game and not as an introductory roleplaying game. It is an introductory roleplaying game for gamers who have roleplayed before, either returning to the hobby after a while away and wanting to play a fantasy roleplaying game a la Dungeons & Dragons once again or wanting to try an Old School Renaissance retroclone after playing other roleplaying games. It is not an introductory roleplaying game in that its rules are radically streamlined for ease of play rather than ease of learning, so there is no explanation of what roleplaying is or how the game is played.

Characters in Swords & Wizardry Continual Light have the usual attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. A bonus of +1 is awarded if one of the attributes is fifteen or more, which has various effects depending upon the attribute. So yes, the +1 bonus for Strength applies to a Fighter’s attack and damage rolls, but for a Magic-User, a +1 bonus for Intelligence acts as a penalty to anyone who has to save against his spells, whilst for Charisma, it also grants an NPC, a Torchbearer, who will join the adventurer on his explorations and expeditions. There are four Races—Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, and Human, and four Classes—Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, and Thief. The three non-Human Races provide various bonuses, but are limited in their choice of available Classes. The Classes work as well as you would expect, granting Class abilities, a Saving Throw, a Base Hit Bonus, and a Hit Dice, but there are differences.

So a Fighter is good at fighting, a Cleric can cast holy spells and turn undead, and so on. All Classes presented in Swords & Wizardry Continual Light are given a choice of Gear Sets in terms of weapons and armour, whilst all characters get to pick from a choice of Adventuring Packs which provides their starting equipment. The first difference though, is the fact that every character’s Hit Points are rolled on a six-sided die per Level rather than on different polyhedral dice per Class as in other Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games. Similarly, the damage rolls for various weapons are rolled on six-sided dice rather than on polyhedral dice. The second difference is that each character only has the single Saving Throw, which of course, improves as the character acquires Levels. The rate of improvement varies between Classes. The other difference pertains to the Thief Class, which like every other treatment of the Class, has various burglary-related skills. These are rated between one and six, rather than on a percentile scale as in other Dungeons & Dragons type roleplaying games.

To create a character, a player rolls three six-sided for each attribute and keeps the results. He selects a Race, a Class, spells if the Class allows spells to be cast, and then a Gear Set and a Adventuring Pack. The most time consuming part of this process is actually writing it all down, but the information is slight enough that it could be noted down on an index card.

Elidyr Virzana, Elf, Level 1 Magic-User
Str: 12 Int: 16 (+1) Wis: 07
Con: 11 Dex: 13 Chr: 15 (+1)
Hit Points: 3 Save: 15 (+4 Saves vs. Magic)
Armour Class: 10 Ascending Armour Class: 10
+1 to-hit vs. goblins, orcs, and undead; immune to paralysis; +2 save vs. magic; +1 to Hide in Shadows & Move Silently
Spellbook: Sleep, Detect Magic
Gear: Staff (1d6), Daggers (2) (1d6-1), Adventuring Pack
Torchbearer: Norbert Smith (HD 1-1, AC 9 (10), HP 5)

Perhaps the biggest difference in Swords & Wizardry Continual Light is how experience and the acquisition of Levels is handled. It foregoes Experience Points and simply awards a character a new Level after he has played through a set number of adventures. This is two to go from First to Second Level, then five to go from Third to Fourth Level, and so on all the way up to Seventh Level, the maximum Level possible in Swords & Wizardry Continual Light. This is pleasingly simple and it nicely supports a couple of options also given. These include eight optional Classes—Bards, Assassins, Druids, Monks, Necromancers, Paladins, Rangers, and Swashbucklers—which are variants of the four core Classes. All eight are quite powerful in comparison to those four core Classes, so Swords & Wizardry Continual Light balances this in a simple way. The character of an optional Class has to complete an extra adventure to acquire a new Level in comparison to the four core Classes, so three instead of two to go from First to Second Level. Further, the rules provide an option for playing beyond Seventh Level, allowing players to purchase Perks like an extra Hit Point, an additional spell slot, or a reduction a character’s Saving Throw, using credits they accrue for completing adventures. One last option gives rules for balancing playing a Human character rather than a character of another Race and allowing a Cleric to have spells at First Level.

In the main, the rest of the book consists of a series of short sections. So equipment, spells—four or five spells for each Level up to Third Level for the Cleic and the Magic-User Classes, combat and running the game, and treasure are covered in just a couple of pages each. This is done by stripping the content back to its bare essentials, so that spell and treasure descriptions and effects are expressed on no more than a couple of lines. Monster details and descriptions understandably need a little more space, but not much, but the sheer number of them means that almost five pages are devoted to them. Again, their details are stripped down, but the combination of stats and description rarely amounts to more than four lines.

Rounding out Swords & Wizardry Continual Light is a glossary and a guide to converting  Swords & Wizardry Complete to Swords & Wizardry Continual Light. All this runs to just twenty pages, including the Open Gaming Licence. Which begs the question, what is missing? Obviously, there is no introduction to roleplaying, no example of character generation, no example of play, and so on, but then arguably Swords & Wizardry Continual Light does not need them because it is not aimed at an audience which needs that sort of introductory content. What Swords & Wizardry Continual Light very much lacks is an adventure. Without that, it feels like a complete set of mechanics, but not a complete package and an adventure would have rounded the Swords & Wizardry Continual Light out. It is not even as there is not space available—there are a few more blank pages which could have been filled with an adventure.

Physically, Swords & Wizardry Continual Light is a bit hit and miss. The layout is at best serviceable and readable, but that is in the main due to the stripped down nature of the text, organised as it is into almost bullet points. One issue is that the character sheet is plain ugly and artless. Another is with the art. The book’s cover is great, but it does not match the internal illustrations, especially in terms of tone. It is great and it is heroic, but the internal illustrations depict down at heel, desperate adventurers all but muddling through in grim, dangerous situations. Some of the artwork quality is poor, but the worst problem is that its size varies too much and impinges upon the layout. This really needed to be more consistently handled. Lastly, it feels as if it should be presented as an A5, digest-sized book rather than the A4 size it is.

Bar the adventure, there is no denying that Swords & Wizardry Continual Light gives you everything necessary to play and presents it in as to the point and as accessible a fashion as possible. As a printed booklet though, it feels  a little more expensive than other games of its ilk, especially given the lack of adventure. That said, the PDF version of Swords & Wizardry Continual Light is inexpensive and the available adventures are just as inexpensive, so that the Dungeon Master can get playing quickly and easily without being too heavy on the wallet. It also feels like it should be in a box with dice and adventures and character sheets, essentially a ‘White Box’ version of Swords & Wizardry Continual Light.

Published by Triumvirate Tavern Publishing, Swords & Wizardry Continual Light is overall, an impressively simple and straightforward retroclone. It may not do anything particularly original, but what it does, it does to the point and it does in a pleasingly familiar fashion. Swords & Wizardry Continual Light is stripped down, sparse Dungeons & Dragon-style gaming, perfect for making the switch to the Old School Renaissance or coming back to the hobby.

A Taste of Cthulhu in the Dark

Originally appearing in the highly regarded Stealing Cthulhu and then in The Unspeakable Oath #22, Cthulhu Dark is a rules light RPG of Lovecraftian investigative horror designed for simple, minimalist play. Its core rules fit on a single page and require no more than three dice—one of which should be green—per player to play so that a game can be begun with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the players. A stripped down version of the rules for Cthulhu Dark are currently available from the author’s website, but an expanded version of the game itself is currently being funded via a Kickstarter campaign. This review is not of the edition that will eventually be funded via Kickstarter, but Cthulhu Dark 0, the preview edition launched at DragonMeet 2016.

As with other RPGs of Lovecraftian investigative horror, in Cthulhu Dark, the player take on the roles of Investigators drawn into mysteries that defy explanation and will eventually reveal to them terrible secrets that bring them to understand the true nature of the universe. This nature is alien and uncaring, a sense of dread that threatens to overwhelm and sap both the sanity and the humanity of these that come into contact with it. This is a universe of things—alien entities and species—who care nothing about the existence of humanity and those that do see them as nothing more than as transitory irrelevancies or playthings. Collectively they are known as the Cthulhu Mythos, being as like unto gods as mankind might be to lesser species on Earth. Some are worshipped by men in the hope of gaining power or at least the chance to survive should the stars come right and these things come to reclaim the plant that was once theirs and will be again. Such men are insane and in carrying out their master's’ plans spread horror and insanity… The Investigators will often find themselves looking into such plans and so confront the Mythos and its corrosive effects.

Notably, in Cthulhu Dark, confronting the Mythos is all that the Investigators can do. They cannot fight it directly, for it is too powerful, too unknowable, and such efforts are doomed to end in failure, resulting in the Investigators’ deaths or insanity. They can instead face its Earthly minions, though often hampered by the positions of power such minions hold in society, and so perhaps thwart such dastardly plans as would end in the return of the Great Old Ones and the end of life on Earth as they know it…

In Cthulhu Dark 0, an Investigator essentially consists of three things—a name, an Occupation, and his Insight. Alternatively, he might have a trait should the scenario not need the Investigators to have an Occupation. So for example, here is a Henry Brinded, an Investigator who appears in the recently published Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion.

Name: Henry Brinded
Occupation: Bostonian Antiquarian
Insight Die: 1

Mechanically, Cthulhu Dark is very simple. If an Investigator wants to do or investigate something, whether that is question someone or search the newspaper morgue for relevant articles, as long as that act is within human capabilities, his player rolls one die—the Human die. If the investigative act lies within the scope of the Investigator’s Occupation, then his player rolls a second die—the Occupation die. If the Investigator wants to risk his mind to succeed or if the investigative act directly pertains to the Mythos, then his player rolls a third die—the green Insight die. Then the dice are rolled and the highest result counts, showing the Investigator how much information he learns.

On a result of a one, he discovers the bare minimum; enough to proceed with the investigation, but no more. On a result of a four, he discovers everything that a competent investigator would, whilst on result of a five, he discovers this and something more. On a result of a six, he discovers everything that a competent investigator would and something more, but also glimpses something beyond the understanding of mere men. This undoubtedly going to be horrific and will probably require the player to make an Insight Roll for the Investigator. Likewise, if the highest result is on the Investigator’s Insight Die, an Insight Roll also needs to be made. 

For example, Henry Brinded has found the Diaries of the Walter Corbit, late of a supposed haunted house in Boston. He decides to read them. The Keeper lets his player roll his Human Die, his Occupation Die, and because Brinded is reading a Mythos tome, his player can also roll his Insight Die. On a result of a one, Brinded learns that Corbit worshiped at the Chapel of Contemplation; on  result of a four, he discovers that Corbit worshiped at the Chapel of Contemplation and was in dispute with his neighbours; on result of a five, he learns that Corbit worshiped at the Chapel of Contemplation and was in dispute with his neighbours because he wanted to be buried in his house; but on a six, he discovers that he learns that Corbit worshiped at the Chapel of Contemplation and was in dispute with his neighbours because he wanted to be buried in his house and that he had no intention of dying! 

An Investigator’s Insight represents how far he comprehends the true, horrifying nature of the universe. It begins at one and is represented by the Investigator’s green Insight Die, which always has its current value displayed. When an Investigator encounters something unnatural and disturbing, his player must make an Insight roll, rolling his Insight Die. If the result is higher than the Investigator’s Insight, it goes up by one as he gains greater understanding of the universe’s true nature and his player must roleplay his Investigator’s newly invoked fears. 

If an Investigator’s Insight reaches five, he can attempt to suppress his knowledge by burning Mythos tomes, stopping rituals, and so on, his player rolling the Insight Die in an attempt to lower his Investigator’s Insight. Unfortunately, should an Investigator’s Insight reach six, he achieves full comprehension of the universe and after one moment of lucidity goes insane… Time to create a new Investigator.

The effect of these stripped back mechanics is keep play simple and straightforward. Essentially there is no means of failure, the dice rolls determining how well an Investigator does rather than whether he fails or succeeds. Unlike most traditional roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, Cthulhu Dark is very much a narrativist game rather than a simulationist game. (Actually, there is a mechanic for failure which adds a ‘Failure Die’ to an Investigator’s roll, but only when it is interesting and only when it does not impinge upon the investigative process.)

Further, in comparison to most traditional roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, Cthulhu Dark collapses the Sanity/Insanity scale and changes the rate at which an Investigator will lose his Sanity. Initial loses will be quicker and more likely, but as an Investigator’s Sanity drops and his Insanity rises, he becomes inured to the horrors of the Mythos, making that final realisation as to the truth of the universe all the more horrifying when it occurs.

The core rules in Cthulhu Dark 0 run to no more than ten pages—and eight pages of those really only expand upon the rules given in the first two pages. In comparison, the Keeper’s Section is four times as long. It delves into how to write and rewrite a mystery, and then play the mystery before presenting a bestiary. It takes the Keeper from first principles through to running the adventure, constantly asking questions of him in order to help him develop the adventure, avoid pitfalls, and handle both both dice rolls and scene. This section is engaging and worth the time of any Keeper to read, whatever roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror he runs. 

Like any roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, Cthulhu Dark includes a bestiary of Mythos entities and creatures. It looks at each entry’s themes, creeping horrors, and how they can applied to the settings mentioned elsewhere of ‘London 1851’ and ‘Mumbai 2037’. The entries include Old Ones such as Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth, servitor races like Deep Ones, independent races such as the Elder Things and the Mi-Go, sorcerers like Joseph Curwen and Keziah Mason, and even artefacts such as the Shining Trapezohedron. It is not a comprehensive bestiary and feels influenced by the author’s earlier Stealing Cthulhu. This is no bad thing and there is no reason that a Keeper could not apply the ideas and methods of Stealing Cthulhu to the entities and creatures presented in Cthulhu Dark.

The setting provided in Cthulhu Dark 0 is ‘London 1851’, with the other mentioned setting, ‘Mumbai 2037’, to be included in the full version of the roleplaying game. ‘London 1851’ is a Dickensian alternative to the ‘Mauve Decade’ of Cthulhu by Gaslight atypical to most Victorian Era set roleplaying games. Not only does it provide a detailed snapshot of the city at the time of the Great Exhibition, it looks at the various options for Investigators during the period. What is interesting about the options discussed is that none of them are really Middle Class or Upper Class, most are really Working Class. Other Victorian Era roleplaying games might provide such options, but the point in Cthulhu Dark 0 is that the Investigators do not hold positions of real power or influence and in a typical Cthulhu Dark scenario, the Investigators are at odds with those who do. The lack of Middle Class or Upper Class options enforces this.

Rounding out Cthulhu Dark 0 is ‘The Screams of the Children’, a scenario set in London, 1851. The Investigators are thieves, prostitutes, street-sellers, and others—sample Investigators are provided, all female—who reside at the same lodging house where the baby of another resident has disappeared. It involves themes of pregnancy, childbirth, and monstrous offspring, and makes uses of the previous description given of London in the early Victorian period, but adds specific locations to accompany its plot, plus  themes and suggested die rolls for Investigators’ efforts. The scenario is relatively short, but nicely involving and atmospheric, harking back in tone to the author’s Purist scenarios for Trail of Cthulhu.

Physically, Cthulhu Dark 0 is a slim volume, neatly laid out and lightly, but nicely illustrated. The writing style is also light, but very direct with the author constantly asking questions of first the reader and then the Keeper. This is a style singular to the author and can be seen in his earliest tome on roleplaying, Playing Unsafe, as it can here and in the more recent Cthulhu Apocalypse. If there is an issue with the writing and with a great any of the questions—at least in the answers given to them—is that they go to support the given scenario, ‘The Screams of the Children’ rather than a Cthulhu Dark scenario in general. This though, is only an issue with Cthulhu Dark 0 and hopefully will be less of an issue in Cthulhu Dark when released with more scenarios as the full roleplaying game.

What Cthulhu Dark combines is Graham Walmsley’s interpretation of the Cthulhu Mythos gained through his authoring of Stealing Cthulhu with simple, unobtrusive mechanics that model the investigative process and sanity degradation inherent to the genre of Lovecraftian investigative horror. The result is a refinement of Lovecraftian investigative horror gaming down to its essential saltes.

The Pony Game

Rest assured that when I write that the My Little Pony RPG is a reality, it is not a sign of the impending apocalypse. Mostly because what we actually have is Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game, a light, family-friendly RPG that is based upon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the cartoon in which anthropomorphic ponies with bright, pastel coloured bodies, manes, and ‘cutie’ marks have adventures in the magical land of Equestria and learn all about friendship. Originally, both the cartoon and My Little Pony were aimed at young girls, but in more recent years it has been adopted by an older audience, including boys and men who are known as ‘bronies’. It should be made clear that primary reason that Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game is not the My Little Pony RPG is because players do not take on the roles of the characters from the cartoon—Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, Spike the Dragon, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and so on—but rather create a pony and then take them on magical adventures of their own and learn about friendship through the roleplaying rather than through just watching the cartoon.

Published by River Horse Games, Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game is a Class and Level game which uses simple mechanics and the full set of polyhedral dice. It comes as a very bright and very breezy hardback that is written in a light and easy style such that an experienced roleplayer can read through it in a couple of hours or so and be ready to run the adventure included in the book, ‘The Pet Predicament’, with ease.

So what can you play in the Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game? Ponies of course, but the choices are Earth Ponies, best known for their Stout Hearts; Unicorns, best known for their horn which grants them Telekinesis; and Pegasi, who with their wings can Fly. The fourth type of Pony, the Alicorn, is not available to play, but might be something that a Pony can aspire to become. Each Pony is aligned with one of the six Elements of Harmony, “…the most powerful magic known to ponydom.” These are Honesty, Laughter, Generosity, Loyalty, Kindness, and Magic. This alignment has no particular in-game effect, but rather it reflects a dominant aspect of a Pony’s personality.

Each Pony has three Traits—Body, Mind, and Charm—and each Trait is rated by a die type, typically a four or six-sided die at game’s start. Similarly, each Pony will have one or two Talents, one related to the type of Pony he is and one related to his Cutie Mark that he is very good at. So this includes the Stout Heart, Telekinesis, and Fly Talents of the Earth Ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasi, as well as Creative Flair, Healing Touch, Pony Sense, Speak with Animals, and so on. Such Talents are also rated by die types, typically a six-sided die at First Level. As a Pony gains new Levels, he can increase the die for the Traits and Talents he has or choose a new Talent. Every Pony has a Quirk like Bossy or Too Silly. Pony creation is very quick and easy.

Pook the Pony
First Level Pegasi
Element of Harmony: Loyalty
Body d4 Mind d6 Charm d6
Stamina 10
Cutie Mark – Book
Tokens of Friendship 2+ 
Talents
Fly d6, Keen Knowledge (History) d6
Quirk – Needs Glasses

Mechanically, Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game continues this simplicity. To undertake a task, a Pony rolls the die type associated with a Trait, aiming to beat a Difficulty set by the GM. So a very easy task has a Difficulty of two, a Quite Easy task a difficulty of four, and so on, all the way up to ‘Has anyone ever done this?’ with a Difficulty of anywhere between thirteen and twenty. A roll of a one is always bad news, whilst rolling double or more the Difficulty of a task is counted as an Amazing Success! Further, if a Pony has a Talent appropriate to the Task, he gains an extra die to roll or the Trait die is upgraded to the next die type depending upon the Talent. Similarly, a Pony can gain extra dice for a task if other Ponies help him and working together like this might even lower the Difficulty of the task. However many dice are rolled, the highest result rolled determines the success or failure of a task.

A Pony always has a chance at succeeding at an impossible task because of a technique called the ‘Exploding Hoof!’. This is a variant of the exploding die mechanic found in other RPGs. In the Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game, when the maximum on a die is rolled, then a Pony gets to roll the next highest die, and if he rolls the maximum on that die, then he gets to roll the next highest die, and so on. Only the single highest die is kept—the dice are not added together.

So for example, Pook the Pony has an important editing task to undertake which the GM sets at a Difficulty of Very hard, which is seven. Of course Pook the Pony will use his Mind Trait and because the editing involves something historical, the GM allows him to use his Keen Knowledge (History) Talent, which gives him another die. So Pook the Pony’s player has two six-sided dice to roll, but the Difficulty is still seven, so he is going to rely on the ‘Exploding Hoof!’ technique in order to succeed. Pook the Pony’s player rolls both dice, getting a result of one and six. This is good news because it enables Pook the Pony to use the ‘Exploding Hoof!’ technique, which in this case means that his player can roll an eight-sided die. This he does and not only does Pook the Pony’s player succeed, he rolls an eight and activates the ‘Exploding Hoof!’ technique a second time. This allows the player to roll a ten-sided die, but this time he rolls only a one. This means that the result of the eight-sided die, an eight, is the best result and this is what the player keeps and means that Pook the Pony succeeds and manages to successfully edit the document.

Of course a big factor in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the importance of friendship and so it needs to be a major factor in Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game. One way in which the game addresses this is with the possible lowering of the Difficulty of a task when Ponies work together to complete or overcome a task. The other way is through the use of Tokens of Friendship. Every Pony begins with a number of these equal to the number of players round the table, including the GM. These can be spent to reroll a die, reroll a die, but use a twenty-sided die instead, or to automatically succeed. This costs one, two, or three Tokens of Friendship respectively. If the GM allows it, they can also be spent to change minor aspects of the story.

This though, is just the effect of one Pony using his Tokens of Friendship. If two or more Ponies mix their Tokens of Friendship, then the effect of these Tokens of Friendship can be increased. For example, two Ponies might expend a Token of Friendship each and the GM could rule that instead of this allowing a task to be rerolled using a twenty-sided die, which costs Tokens of Friendship, the Ponies automatically succeed at the task, which normally costs three. Presumably, this increased effect applies to possible changes made to the story, but this is not developed.

The downside to using Tokens of Friendship is that once used, they are gone and cannot be used again. The primary way of a regaining Tokens of Friendship is to gain a new Level which typically happens at the successful completion of an adventure. Ponies can also acquire new Tokens of Friendship when another Pony and his player joins the group, but the primary in-game method of regaining them is through roleplaying great acts of friendship. It is up to the GM to decide what such acts are.

Once the GM is ready and the players have created their Ponies, Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game includes a lengthy scenario, ‘The Pet Predicament’, which takes up a fifth of the book. In this the Ponies are visiting Ponyville when they rescue a pet belonging to one of the characters from the cartoon, Fluttershy. This leads to the Ponies being asked to pet-sit not only Fluttershy’s pet, but also to look after all of those belonging to the Mane Six from the cartoon series, as they go to investigate a threat to Equestria. Of course this does not go as well as expected and the Ponies need to make every effort together to locate and rescue these pets when they escape. Their efforts will be hampered by the personalities and abilities of the pets, but everything should work out in the end. The scenario could have been slightly better structured to make it easier to run, but it should last one or two sessions of play.

Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game ends with the stats for not only the characters and animals involved in ‘The Pet Predicament’, but also the members of the Mane Six and other characters from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The book also includes a good index and a set of die charts. There is one for each die type and allows the game to be played if a group lacks polyhedral dice, by having the players close their eyes and then point at a number on the chart. It is a solution, but it is a somewhat clumsy one.

The roleplaying game includes advice for players on creating their Ponies and for playing Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game. There is also advice for the GM on how to run game. All three sections of advice are in the same chapter and in each case the advice is good enough. Yet there is an issue with Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game and that is that the authors are not quite sure who the target audience is for the game—or if they are sure, it certainly is not clear in the book itself. Is it for the original audience for My Little Pony, that is, young girls? Is it for traditional roleplayers? Is it for bronies? The subject matter and background material will probably not interest the majority of traditional roleplayers, so not them. This does not mean that experienced roleplayers could not play Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game and enjoy it. 

That said, there is a box of advice aimed at older readers (or roleplayers) about running Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game for a younger audience. Again, the experienced roleplayer will have no difficulty running Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game for a younger audience. For the inexperienced roleplayer or anyone new to roleplaying, it is another matter—and that no matter if the prospective GM is an adult, a young fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, or a Brony. In other words, they all need to have roleplayed before if they are to get the most out of Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game, because as much the game uses simple rules, it is not as good an introductory game as it could be. One problem is that the use of polyhedral dice could be confusing to an audience being more used to dice being ‘square’. The charts help somewhat, but they are cumbersome. Another problem is that as an introductory roleplaying game, what it really lacks to that end, is a thoroughly good example of play that would illustrate how both the game and roleplaying works. Had that been included, as well as a guide to rolling the funny shaped dice, Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game would be a much stronger introductory roleplaying game.

Certainly a further challenging issue for the inexperienced GM is handling Tokens of Friendship when the players decide to mix them up. This could have been given much more attention, especially when it comes to altering the story. The experienced GM will probably be able to find advice elsewhere or know how to handle such situations, but not the inexperienced GM.

Physically, Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game is big, bold, bright, and breezy. It is illustrated with lots images from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and once you get past compound words such as ‘anypony’ and ‘somepony’, the book is also well written.

Where Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game really comes into its own is as game for the traditional roleplayer to run for younger players. The rules are simple and very easy to pick up and within an hour or two of picking up the book to read, an experienced GM will be ready to run the scenario in the book. The player new to being a GM might want to play Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game first with another GM to learn the rules before running it himself, but again, the rules are simple and easy to learn, such that they would not impede initial refereeing efforts. Not the perfect introductory roleplaying game that it could have been, Tails of Equestria – The Storytelling Game is nevertheless, a nice, familiar way to many with which to introduce certain audiences to the hobby.